Examining Argumentation in Context
Argumentation in Context (AIC) This new bookseries 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.
Editors Frans van Eemeren
University of Amsterdam
Bart Garssen University Amsterdam
Editorial Board Mark Aakhus
Eddo Rigotti
Marianne Doury
Sara Rubinelli
Eveline T. Feteris
Takeshi Suzuki
G. Thomas Goodnight
Giovanni Tuzet
Cornelia Ilie
David Zarefsky
Sally Jackson
Gábor Zemplén
Rutgers University CNRS Paris
University of Amsterdam University of Southern California Örebro University University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Manfred Kienpointner
University of Lugano University of Lugano Tsuda College
University of Bocconi Northwestern University Budapest University of Technology and Economic
University of Innsbrueck
Volume 1 Examining Argumentation in Context. Fifteen studies on strategic maneuvering Edited by Frans H. van Eemeren
Examining Argumentation in Context Fifteen studies on strategic maneuvering
Edited by
Frans H. van Eemeren University of Amsterdam
John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam / Philadelphia
8
TM
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Examining argumentation in context : fifteen studies on strategic maneuvering / edited by Frans H. van Eemeren. p. cm. (Argumentation in Context, issn 1877-6884 ; v. 1) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Persuasion (Rhetoric) 2. Discourse analysis. I. Eemeren, F. H. van. P301.5.P47E93 2009 808.5'3--dc22 2009011543 isbn 978 90 272 1118 7 (hb; alk. paper) isbn 978 90 272 8932 2 (eb)
© 2009 – 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 Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
Dedicated to the Memory of Peter Houtlosser (1956–2008)
Table of contents
Preface Strategic maneuvering: Examining argumentation in context Frans H. van Eemeren and Peter Houtlosser
ix 1
Strategic maneuvering with dissociation M. A. van Rees
25
Constrained maneuvering: Rhetoric as a rational enterprise Christopher W. Tindale
41
Plausible and fallacious strategies to silence one’s opponent Manfred Kienpointner
61
Strategic maneuvering in direct-to-consumer drug advertising: Argument, contestation, and institutions G. Thomas Goodnight
77
Strategic manoeuvring in the justification of judicial decisions Eveline T. Feteris
93
Strategic maneuvering in political argumentation David Zarefsky
115
Legitimation and strategic maneuvering in the political field Isabela Ieţcu-Fairclough
131
Accusing someone of an inconsistency as a confrontational way of strategic manoeuvring Corina Andone Manoeuvring strategically in Prime Minister’s Question Time Dima Mohammed
153 171
viii Examining Argumentation in Context
Quid pro nobis. Rhetorical stylistics for argument analysis Jeanne Fahnestock
191
Shifting the topic in Dutch parliament: How presentational choices can be instrumental in strategic manoeuvring Yvon Tonnard
221
The contribution of praeteritio to arguers’ confrontational strategic manoeuvres A. Francisca Snoeck Henkemans
241
Manoeuvring with voices: The polyphonic framing of arguments in an institutional advertisement Andrea Rocci
257
Persuasive effects of strategic maneuvering: Some findings from meta-analyses of experimental persuasion effects research Daniel J. O’Keefe
285
About the contributors
297
Index
303
Preface
Examining Argumentation in Context is dedicated to the memory of Peter Houtlosser, who died of cancer on the 14th of February 2008. Peter was not only a dear friend of the contributors to this volume and a great many others, but he was also a prominent argumentation theorist who died before he could realize his full scholarly potential. Peter and I were convinced that a satisfactory analysis and evaluation of argumentative discourse is possible only if the argumentation concerned is first situated in the communicative and interactional context in which it occurs. Together we worked for ten years on the development of a theory of strategic maneuvering in argumentative discourse that would enrich the pragmadialectical approach developed at the University of Amsterdam by including the contextual dimension. The fifteen studies on strategic maneuvering presented in this volume are brought together as a token of respect for Peter’s intellectual contributions to the study of argumentation. As part of a research program on strategic maneuvering in argumentative discourse subsidized by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO, no. 360-80-030) Peter and I organized in Amsterdam four one-day conferences for argumentation theorists interested in this topic. The first conference took place in October 2006 and was devoted to a discussion of general perspectives on strategic maneuvering. The second conference was held in May 2007 and concentrated on qualitative and quantitative empirical research with regard to strategic maneuvering. The third conference in October 2007 focusing on strategic maneuvering in institutionalized contexts was the last conference in which Peter could take part. The fourth conference in May 2008 was dedicated to presentational devices used in strategic maneuvering. The papers presented at these four conferences provide useful and sometimes illuminating insights in the views of strategic maneuvering of more than forty argumentation theorists studying argumentation in context who have paid attention to the problems involved in the analysis and evaluation of strategic maneuvering. For this volume I had to make a selection that is a good representation of the rich variety of the four conferences and the ideas presented. This means that this volume contains some essays in which general views with regard to strategic maneuvering are presented as well as essays reporting on the results of empirical study, essays that examine argumentation embedded in a particular
Examining Argumentation in Context
legal or political context, and essays highlighting the presentational aspect of strategic maneuvering. More often than not the essays offer a combination of these perspectives. After an introductory chapter by me and Peter Houtlosser on strategic maneuvering as a key notion in studying argumentation in context, M. A. van Rees discusses strategic maneuvering with dissociation, Christopher Tindale emphasizes the rational character of rhetoric, and G. Thomas Goodnight links strategic maneuvering with New Institutional Theory. Eveline Feteris illustrates how in the justification of judicial decisions strategic maneuvering can relate to the presumed intention of the legislator, David Zarefsky analyzes strategic maneuvering in political argumentation, Isabela Ieţcu-Fairclough concentrates on the same political field in discussing “legitimation” and strategic maneuvering, Corina Andone deals with strategic maneuvering by accusing someone of an inconsistency, and Dima Mohammed examines strategic maneuvering in Prime Minister’s Question Time. After Jeanne Fahnestock sketches a rhetorical stylistics for argument analysis, Yvon Tonnard discusses the effectiveness of the choice of presentational means used in strategic maneuvering, A. Francisca Snoeck Henkemans concentrates particularly on the use of praeteritio in strategic maneuvering, and Andrea Rocci examines maneuvering with “tropes.” Daniel O’Keefe closes this volume with a discussion of the persuasive effects of strategic maneuvering starting from some meta-analyses of experimental persuasion research. Next to this tribute to Peter Houtlosser I hope to publish in the near future an accompanying monograph based on the work Peter and I have done together on strategic maneuvering in argumentative discourse. For now I would like to thank Bart Garssen and my assistants Renske Wierda and Nanon Labrie for their help in preparing the manuscript of Examining Argumentation in Context.
Frans H. van Eemeren Amsterdam 19th January 2009
Strategic maneuvering Examining argumentation in context Frans H. van Eemeren and Peter Houtlosser
1.
Introduction
The pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation developed by van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1984, 1992, 2004) enables the analyst of argumentative discourse to make a theoretically motivated reconstruction of the discourse that results in an “analytic overview” of all elements that are pertinent to a critical evaluation (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1992). The analytic overview clarifies the difference of opinion at issue and the positions of the participants. It identifies the procedural and substantive premises that serve as the starting point of the discussion. It surveys the arguments and criticisms that are – explicitly or implicitly – advanced, the argument schemes that are used, the argumentation structures that are developed, and it determines the conclusion that is reached. The analysis is based on the pragma-dialectical model of a critical discussion that provides a survey of all speech acts and combinations of speech acts that have a constructive function in the various stages of the process of resolving a difference of opinion on the merits and therefore provides an appropriate heuristic and analytic tool for reconstructing the development of the resolution process. This reconstruction consists of carrying out transformations that amount to making explicit these speech acts that remain implicit in the actual discourse but are relevant to the resolution process (“addition”), reformulating in an unequivocal way speech acts whose function would otherwise be opaque (“substitution”), rearranging in an insightful way speech acts whose order in the discourse does not reflect their function in the resolution process (“permutation”), and abandoning speech acts from consideration that do not play a part in the resolution process (“deletion”) (van Eemeren et al., 1993). In some cases, however, neither the textual presentation, nor contextual information in the strict sense (“micro-context”) or in the broader sense (“meso-
Frans H. van Eemeren and Peter Houtlosser
context,” “macro-context,” and “hyper-context”) nor the possibilities of making logical and pragmatic inferences, nor general or specific background knowledge – our regular sources for giving a justified analysis – seem to offer enough evidence for a full reconstruction of the discourse, so that pragma-dialecticians – in a charitable fashion – take refuge to so-called “maximal” strategies aimed at making the analytic choices that do optimal justice to the purposes of a critical discussion, but remain, in fact, arbitrary (“maximally reasonable reconstruction,” “maximally argumentative interpretation,” “maximally argumentative analysis”). This predicament makes the analysis that can be achieved less thorough and comprehensive than desirable, its justification less firmly grounded than desirable, and an evaluation based on this analysis less well-balanced than desirable. In our view, the reconstruction that takes place in a pragma-dialectical analysis of argumentative discourse can be further refined and better accounted for if the standard version of the pragma-dialectical theory is extended by including a rhetorical dimension that makes it possible to take the strategic design of the discourse into consideration in the analysis (cf. Leff, 2006; Zarefsky, 2006a). A pragma-dialectical theory that is thus extended will, because the strategic function of argumentative moves is taken into account, also allow for a more realistic treatment of the fallacies in the evaluation of argumentative discourse (cf. Zarefsky, 2006b). In the research project Strategic Maneuvering in Argumentative Discourse, which the two of us started in 1996, it was our aim to develop such an extended version of the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation. This extended pragma-dialectical theory will be presented in the near future in a monograph with the same title as the project (van Eemeren, to be published). This Chapter provides a preview of the monograph and serves at the same time as an introduction to the discussions of strategic maneuvering in the essays collected in this volume.
2.
Dialectical and rhetorical perspectives on argumentation
In Antiquity, the dialectical approach and the rhetorical approach to argumentative discourse were in a fundamental sense connected with each other and in some way or other they have remained connected for a long time. Already since Aristotle this connection went together with a distinct division of labor between dialectic and rhetoric, albeit that in later times the division between the two did not always remain the same. Aristotle’s teacher Plato had seen dialectic as a means for finding the truth and had looked down on the rhetorical practice of the Sophists, favoring instead a kind of rhetoric closer to dialectic. In his turn, Aristotle (1960 ed.) developed
Strategic maneuvering
dialectic in the Topics into a system of regulated dialogues for refuting a claim, starting from the other party’s concessions. For him, rhetoric is the mirror image or counterpart (antistrophos) of dialectic. In the Rhetoric Aristotle (1991 ed.) assimilated the opposing views of Plato and the Sophists (Plato, Phaedrus, ed. 1914; Murphy & Katula, 1972/1994: Ch. 2), and provided, by his “argumentative” definition of rhetoric as an ability or capacity (dynamis) in each case to see the available means of persuasion, the conceptual basis for a good deal of what would be considered rhetoric in later times. Cicero integrated in De oratore the stylistic and literary aspects of the Isocratian tradition, which had developed beside the Aristotelian perspective, into the Aristotelian framework. Up to the seventeenth century this Ciceronian rhetoric, which involved also dialectical elements such as disputatio in utramque partem (speaking on both sides of an issue), dominated the western tradition, although after its rediscovery in the fifteenth century Quintilian’s (1920 ed.) Institutio oratoria became the major classical authority on rhetoric in education (Kennedy, 1994: 158, 181). In late Antiquity, Boethius (1978 ed.) subsumed rhetoric in De topicis differentiis under dialectic (Kennedy, 1994: 283). According to Mack, dialectic is for Boethius more important, “providing rhetoric with its basis” (1993: 8, n. 19). The development of humanism “provoked a reconsideration of the object of dialectic and a reform of the relationship between rhetoric and dialectic” (Mack 1993: 15). The humanist Agricola built in De inventione dialectica libri tres (1479/1967) on Cicero’s view that dialectic and rhetoric cannot be separated and incorporated the two in one theory. Unlike Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1958/1969), who – much later – brought in their New Rhetoric some elements from dialectic into rhetoric, Agricola merges elements from rhetoric into dialectic. Meanwhile, however, in medieval times a development had taken place that proved to be fatal for the “cohabitation” of dialectic and rhetoric: Dialectic had achieved a preponderant importance at the expense of rhetoric, which was reduced to a doctrine of elocutio and actio after the study of inventio and dispositio were moved to dialectic. With Ramus, this development culminated in a strict separation between dialectic and rhetoric, with dialectic being incorporated in logic and rhetoric devoted exclusively to style (Meerhoff, 1988). In spite of these precursory symptoms of a widening gap between rhetoric and dialectic, according to Toulmin (2001), the division did not grow “ideological” until after the Scientific Revolution. Then dialectic and rhetoric became two separate and mutually isolated paradigms, each conforming to a different conception of argumentation and generally considered incompatible. While rhetoric has survived in a somewhat different shape, in particular in the United States, as a field of study and a source for scholars in communication,
Frans H. van Eemeren and Peter Houtlosser
language and literature in the humanities (Gaonkar, 1990), dialectic almost disappeared from sight with the formalization of logic in the nineteenth century. Although the dialectical approach to argumentation has been taken up again in the second part of the twentieth century by “formal dialecticians” and “pragmadialecticians” and the rhetorical approach continued to have a substantial following (Simons, 1990), we observe a yawning conceptual and communicative gap between argumentation theorists opting for a dialectical approach (Barth & Krabbe, 1982) and protagonists of a rhetorical approach (Leeman, 1992). This gap hinders the development of a full-fledged theory of argumentation and it is, in our view, unnecessary (cf. Wenzel, 1990).
3.
Strategic maneuvering combining the aims for critical reasonableness and artful effectiveness
We want to overcome the sharp and infertile division between the dialectical approach and the rhetorical approach to argumentative discourse by showing – more or less in line with Agricola – that if they are defined in a liberal way the two approaches can, in fact, be seen as complementary (cf. Krabbe, 2002; Leff, 2002). In pragma-dialectics, “dialectic” is defined pragmatically as a method for dealing systematically with critical exchanges in verbal communication and interaction to move from conjecture and opinion to more secure (descriptive, evaluative, or inciting) standpoints. Rhetoric can, as far as it is immediately relevant to our current purposes, best be defined as the theoretical study of the various kinds of persuasion techniques that can be effective in argumentative practice. Starting from these definitions, there is no theoretical reason to assume from the outset that the rhetorical norm of artful effectiveness is necessarily in contradiction with the dialectical ideal of critical reasonableness. In practice, argumentative moves that are rhetorically strong in the sense that they are effective in persuading a critical audience will more often than not be in accordance with the dialectical norms applying to the discussion stage in which these moves are made (O’Keefe, 2009). Viewed from both a theoretical and a practical perspective, there is a sound basis for trying to overcome the ideological division between dialectic and rhetoric that has obstructed a constructive reconciliation of the dialectical and the rhetorical dimension of the study of argumentation. The gap between dialectic and rhetoric can in our view be bridged by introducing the theoretical notion of “strategic maneuvering” to do justice to the fact that engaging in argumentative discourse always means being at the same time out for critical reasonableness and artful effectiveness (van Eemeren & Houtlosser, 2002). In the way we use this term strategic maneuvering refers to the continual ef-
Strategic maneuvering
forts made in principle by all parties in argumentative discourse to reconcile their simultaneous pursuit of rhetorical aims of effectiveness with maintaining dialectical standards of reasonableness (van Rees, 2009; cf. Jacobs, 2007; Tindale, 2009). Each of the four stages in the process of resolving a difference of opinion by means of a critical discussion is characterized by having a specific dialectical objective. Because, as a matter of course, the parties involved in the difference want to realize these dialectical objectives to the best advantage of the position they have adopted in the discussion, every dialectical objective has its rhetorical analogue. In all discussion stages the rhetorical goals of the participants will be dependent on – and therefore run parallel with – the dialectical goals. As a consequence, the specification of the rhetorical aims the participants in the discourse are presumed to have must in this perspective take place according to dialectical stage. This is the methodological reason why in the study of strategic maneuvering that we propose rhetorical insights are systematically integrated in a dialectical – in this case, a pragma-dialectical – framework of analysis.
4.
Three inseparable aspects of strategic maneuvering
Strategic maneuvering manifests itself in argumentative discourse in the choices that are made from the “topical potential” available at a certain stage in the discourse, in audience-directed “adjustments” of the argumentative moves that are made, and in the purposive use of linguistic (or other) “devices” in presenting these moves. Although these three aspects of strategic maneuvering, which run parallel with classical areas of interest (topics, audience orientation and stylistics), can be distinguished analytically, as a rule they will occur together (and work together) in actual argumentative practice (cf. Tindale, 2004). As regards choosing from the topical potential, a party’s strategic maneuvering in the confrontation stage aims for making the most effective choice among the potential issues for discussion – thus utilizing the “disagreement space” available in the dialectical context in such a way that the confrontation is defined in accordance with that party’s preferences. In the opening stage, each party’s strategic maneuvering is directed at creating the most advantageous (procedural and material) starting point, for instance by calling to mind, or eliciting, helpful “concessions” from the other party. In the argumentation stage, starting from the “status topes” associated with the type of standpoint at issue, each party that acts as protagonist chooses a strategic line of defense that involves a selection from the available loci that suits that party best and each party that acts as antagonist chooses the line of attack that seems most effective in light of the dialectical situation. In the concluding stage, each party will direct all its efforts toward achieving the
Frans H. van Eemeren and Peter Houtlosser
conclusion of the discourse desired by that party, for instance by pointing out what the consequence is of accepting a certain complex of arguments. In examining topical choices in the various stages systematically, we start from (modern interpretations of) classical ideas concerning topoi and stasis theory (cf. Rigotti, 2006; Kauffeld, 2002). As regards audience-directed adjustments, the moves a party makes must in each stage of the discourse be adapted to “audience demand” in such a way that they are expected to be optimally acceptable to the other party in view of that party’s views and preferences, taking into account that argumentative moves that are considered appropriate by some people may not be considered appropriate by others. In general, adaptation to audience demand will consist in each stage in an attempt to create the required “communion,” relying on “endoxa,” specific “concessions” and “contextual commitments” where this is possible. In the confrontation stage, this second aspect of strategic maneuvering may manifest itself, for example, in the avoidance of contradictions between the parties that appear unsolvable. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1958/1969) point out that one way of avoiding such unsolvable contradictions is to communicate disagreement with respect to values as disagreement over facts, because disagreements over facts are generally easier to accommodate. As a rule, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca observe, each party’s efforts are directed at “assigning [...] the status enjoying the widest agreement to the elements on which he is basing his argument” (1969: 179). This explains, for instance, why in the opening stage the status of a widely shared value judgement may be conferred on personal feelings and impressions, and the status of a fact on subjective values. In the argumentation stage, strategic adaptation to audience demand may be achieved by quoting arguments the other party is known to agree with or by referring to argumentative principles that party may be expected to adhere to. In examining audience adaptation in the various discussion stages systematically, we start first of all from the preparatory conditions for performing the types of speech acts by which the various argumentative moves are made that play a constructive part in resolving a difference of opinion on the merits. These conditions indicate, among other things, which requirements must be satisfied with regard to the addressee for a correct performance of these speech acts, so that audience adaptation can be realized in one important respect by indicating their fulfilment. As regards the third aspect of strategic maneuvering, utilizing presentational devices, the phrasing of the moves a party makes and all other ways of styling must in all stages of the discourse be systematically attuned to achieving the effect on the other party that is aimed for in making these moves. We agree with Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca that all argumentative discourse presupposes “a choice consisting not only of the selection of elements to be used, but also of the
Strategic maneuvering
technique for their presentation” (1969: 119). This means, among other things, that each party will exploit the Gricean maxims of Manner in a specific and deliberate way in the discourse. As Anscombre and Ducrot observe, “Signifier, pour un énoncé, c’est orienter” (1983: i), which means, as Anscombre puts it, “diriger le discours dans une certaine direction” (1994: 30). Among the means of expression that can be used, par excellence, as pre sentational devices are the various “figures” (of speech and thought) known from classical (dialectic and) rhetoric (Fahnestock, 1999, 2005, 2009). Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca regard a figure as argumentative if it brings about a change of perspective (1969: 169), which applies, depending on the stage the discussion has reached, for instance, to praeteritio, conciliatio, rhetorical questions, and metalepsis (cf. Reboul, 1989; Rocci, 2009; Snoeck Henkemans, 2009). In examining presentational choices in the various stages systematically, we start from (dialectical and) rhetorical stylistics (see Fahnestock, 1999, 2005, 2009). A party can only be said to carry out a full-fledged “argumentative strategy” if the strategic maneuvering of that party in the discourse converges consistently both “vertically” and “horizontally.” Vertical convergence means that the characteristics of the strategic maneuvering with respect to choosing from topical potential, adapting to audience demand, and utilizing presentational devices reinforce each other. Horizontal convergence means that the characteristics of the first strategic maneuver and the next strategic maneuvers that are made in the discourse reinforce each other. Argumentative strategies in our sense are (vertically and horizontally) coordinated series of strategic maneuvers aimed at influencing the result of a particular dialectical stage, and the discussion as a whole, methodically in a certain direction which manifest themselves at a certain stage of the discourse in a systematic and simultaneous exploitation of the available opportunities. Besides general argumentative strategies pertaining to the discussion as a whole there are specific confrontation strategies, opening strategies, argumentation strategies and concluding strategies.
5.
Strategic maneuvering in different kinds of argumentative activity types
In the various spheres of life, varying from the public sphere to the technical sphere and the private or personal sphere, argumentative discourse takes place in different kinds of “activity types,” which are – depending on the sphere we are talking about – to a greater or lesser degree institutionalized, so that certain argumentative practices have become conventionalized. Unlike theoretical constructs such as the ideal model of a critical discussion, which are purely based
Frans H. van Eemeren and Peter Houtlosser
on analytic considerations regarding the most problem-valid way of implementing a discursive task, activity types and their associated speech events are empirical concepts that can be identified and characterized on the basis of a careful study of a certain domain of argumentative practice (van Eemeren & Houtlosser, 2005). Within such a domain – prominent examples are the legal (Feteris, 2009), the political (Ieţcu-Fairclough, 2009; Zarefsky, 2009), the medical (Schulz & Rubinelli, 2008; Goodnight, 2009) and the scientific or scholarly domain (van Eemeren & Garssen, Eds. 2008) – certain clusters of argumentative activity types can be distinguished that are manifestations of typical argumentative practices in that kind of domain. Due to the different rationales – the “point” – of the various (clusters of) activity types and the ensuing goals and requirements, the conventional preconditions for argumentative discourse differ to some extent according to argumentative activity type and these differences have an effect on the strategic maneuvering in the activity type concerned. There will be certain constraints on the kind of strategic maneuvering that is allowed or deemed acceptable and certain opportunities for strategic maneuvering may arise in the one activity type that are not available in the other. By way of illustration we shall describe for some prominent clusters of activity types, “adjudication,” “mediation,” “negotiation,” and “public debate” the preconditions pertinent to the conduct of strategic maneuvering, and draw a comparison between them in order to make clear that the strategic maneuvering will be affected in different ways depending on the constraints and opportunities going with the argumentative activity type in which it takes place. Adjudication aims for the termination of a dispute by a third party rather than the resolution of a difference of opinion by the parties themselves. Although the cluster of adjudication is broader, it is commonly understood as taking a difference of opinion that has become a dispute to a public court, where a judge, after having heard both sides, will make a reasoned decision in favor of either one of the parties. The judge determines who is wrong and who is right according to a set of rules. As a closer analysis shows, most of these rules are tantamount to specifications of rules for critical discussion aimed at guaranteeing that the dispute is terminated in a reasonable way. There are, for instance, special rules concerning the division of the burden of proof, the data that can be considered as a common starting point and the kinds of proof that count as acceptable. In adjudication, the parties readjust their discussion roles from trying to persuade each other to trying to convince the adjudicator. Mediation refers to a cluster of (for a large part argumentative) activity types that start from a difference of opinion that has become a disagreement that the parties concerned cannot resolve by themselves, so that they have to take refuge to a third party that acts as a neutral facilitator of the discussion process and guides
Strategic maneuvering
the parties in their cooperative (and sometimes less than cooperative) search for a solution. Unlike an adjudicator, the mediator does not have the power to terminate the disagreement. Irrespective of whether the disagreement concerns custody of the children of a divorced couple or the price that has to be paid for the reparation of a car, the mediator aims at helping the parties to come to an arrangement that is satisfactory to both parties. Negotiation refers to a cluster of (sometimes argumentative) activity types that start from a conflict of interests rather than merely a difference of opinion. These activity types may vary from peace negotiations to bargaining. Unlike in adjudication and mediation, in negotiations the disputants are focussed on each other rather than on a presumably neutral third party. Negotiations prototypically aim for a compromise. Usually, the compromise will consist of the maximum amount of agreement that can be reached on the basis of the concessions that both parties are willing to make. A series of more or less conventionalized interest-related activity types have developed that are aimed at reaching an outcome in which the interests of both sides are met to an extent that is mutually acceptable. Public debate refers to a multi-varied cluster of (emphatically argumentative) activity types that start from a mixed difference of opinion between the debaters about one or more issues on which the views of the listening (or television-watching) audience diverge. Although some public debates may have a more clearly defined format than others, they are in principle not fully conventionalized. In public debates the contestants generally have clear starting points that are in crucial respects different from each other. At all times they take the listening audience into account up to the point that this audience is their primary addressee and sometimes even their only “real” addressee. More often then not their argumentation is therefore aimed at convincing the audience rather than their debate partner(s). It is the audience that determines the outcome of the debate, albeit that this outcome may be different for different members of the audience. The activity types belonging to the cluster of pubic debate are particularly interesting from our extended pragma-dialectical perspective because its conventionalization, as far as it goes, affects both the dialectical and the rhetorical dimension of argumentative discourse.
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Examples of clusters of argumentative activity types characterized with the help of the model of a critical discussion Critical discussion
Confrontation Opening stage stage
Argumentation Concluding stage stage
Cluster of activity types
Initial situation Starting points Argumentative (rules, concessions) means
Outcome
Adjudication
dispute; 3rd party with jurisdiction to to decide
largely explicit codified rules; explicitly established concessions
argumentation based on interpretation of concessions in terms of facts and evidence
settlement of dispute by sustained decision 3rd party (no return to initial situation)
Mediation
disagreement; 3rd party with no jurisdiction to decide
implicitly enforced regulative rules; no explicitly recognized concessions
argumentation conveyed in would-be spontaneous conversational exchanges
conclusion of disagreement by mediated arrangement parties or provisional return to initial situation
Negotiation
conflict of interests; decision up to the parties
semi-explicit constitutive rules of the game; changeable sets of explicit concessions
argumentation incorporated in exchanges of offers, counteroffers and other commissives
end of conflict by compromise parties, mutually accepted agreement or return to initial situation
Public debate
divergence of mixed views; decision up to a non-interactive audience
largely implicit intersubjective rules; explicit and implicit concessions on both sides
argumentation defending standpoints in critical exchanges
resolution of difference to some members audience or maintenance initial situation
Starting from this comparative inventory of preconditions for argumentative discourse applying to these four clusters of activity types, its can be shown how these preconditions discipline the conduct of strategic maneuvering in the activity types belonging to a certain cluster. However, in order to give a more precise specification, we need to concentrate on the peculiarities of specific activity types instead of on the cluster of activity types as a whole. It is at the level of the individual activity types that the preconditions for (sound) strategic maneuvering manifest themselves most clearly and specifically (see Andone, 2009; Mohammed, 2009; Tonnard, 2009).
6.
Strategic maneuvering
Parameters in determining the strategic function of argumentative maneuvers
In analyzing the strategic function of the maneuvering that is carried out by making a particular argumentative move the following parameters need to be considered (van Eemeren & Houtlosser, 2009): 1. 2. 3. 4.
the results that can be achieved by the maneuvering; the routes that can be taken to achieve these results; the constraints imposed by the institutional context; the commitments defining the argumentative situation.
Ad 1. Theoretical insight into the various components of the analytic overview ensuing from reconstructing a piece of argumentative discourse pragma-dialectically as a critical discussion provides an analytic tool for substantiating the first parameter. Because each discussion stage has its own distinctive constitutive components, insight into an analytic overview enables us to track down systematically which kinds of results can be aimed for in each category of strategic maneuvering. The outcomes that can be reached in a particular discussion stage consist of the various options for filling out the various components of the analytic overview applying to the stage concerned. In the confrontation stage, for instance, which aims at defining the difference of opinion, the results can be a “non-mixed single,” a “mixed single,” a “non-mixed multiple” or a “mixed multiple” difference, depending on the number of propositions involved in the difference of opinion and the positions assumed by the parties with regard to these propositions. In the same vein, the results that can be reached in the other stages can be determined. In the argumentation stage, for instance, reconstruction leads to a specific outcome regarding the arguments that have been advanced, the premises that have been left unexpressed, the types of argument schemes that have been applied, the kinds of criticism that have been leveled, and the structure of the argumentation as a whole. Ad 2. The theoretical notion of a dialectical profile provides an analytic tool for substantiating the second parameter. Dialectical profiles represent the sequential patterns of the “analytically relevant” moves that the participants in a critical discussion can make to achieve an outcome of a particular discussion stage (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 2004; cf. Walton & Krabbe, 1995). The profile of the “explicitization procedure for unexpressed premises,” for instance, defines the procedural ways in which a premise that is left implicit in the argumentation stage can be made explicit. It represents the possible “routes” the participants can take in the process that starts with the “production” of a supposedly incomplete argument and ends with an agreement about the unexpressed premise that is to
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be attributed to the protagonist. Because, in practice, the route that is actually followed is also determined by the interaction between the parties, it is not fully predictable in which way exactly the participants will go through the procedure: What next step they can take depends on the earlier steps they have made but also on the steps that are made by the other party. Nevertheless, the set of alternatives to choose from is finite and indicated in the dialectical profile. Ad 3. An analytic tool for substantiating the third parameter consists of the notion of argumentative activity types. As we already explained in the previous section, argumentative activity types are more or less institutionalized entities of verbal interaction that can be distinguished and characterized by empirical observation of the communicative practices in the various domains of discourse. They manifest themselves in a great many culturally established variants, some of which have a clearly articulated format, such as Plea Bargaining at a court of law, a Presidential Debate at election time and Prime Minister’s Question Time in parliament, whereas some other activity types, such as informal memos, internet discussion forums or coffee klatch, are generally characterized by a lack of precise format restrictions. Argumentative discourse typically takes place in the context of a rather precisely or only loosely defined activity type, or a communicative and interactional context that can be interpreted as such, which is subjected to conventional preconditions instrumental in shaping the argumentative practice concerned. Depending on the activity type and the conventional preconditions prevailing in that activity type, different constraints (and opportunities) apply with regard to the strategic maneuvering that can be carried out. Ad 4. The commitment sets the arguers have developed by the argumentative moves they have made at the point in the discussion the analyst is focusing on constitute an analytic tool for substantiating the fourth parameter. When taken together the commitments acquired by the parties involved in the discourse determine the “argumentative situation” the arguers are in at a specific juncture in the dialectical profile portraying the relevant part of the discussion. At the point where he is expected to provide argumentation, for instance, an arguer may be in an argumentative situation in which he and his discussion partner are committed to some clearly delineated starting points they have accepted earlier so that they are bound to act in accordance with these starting points. This is not to say that the commitment sets that determine the argumentative situation the arguers are in are merely restrictions on their strategic maneuvering in the continuation of the discussion: These commitment sets also open up opportunities for the arguers to use the other party’s commitments to the advantage of their own cause. In a pragma-dialectical view of argumentative discourse such an opportune use of commitments is endorsed by the fact that, in principle, commitments only count
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as genuine if both parties agree on the taking on of these commitments, so that ideally all commitments that are exploited are in a sense shared commitments. The parameters we have just discussed allow for taking account of a finite set of considerations that are pertinent to determining the strategic function of the maneuvering that takes place in making a certain argumentative move in a specific case of argumentative discourse. When taken together, they constitute a useful basis for analyzing the maneuvering in each of the four categories of strategic maneuvering. As a matter of course, the analysis starts from the way in which the strategic maneuvering manifests itself in the discourse, i.e., in a particular choice that is made from the available topical potential, a particular way in which the opportunities for audience-directed adjustment are used, and a particular way in which the presentational possibilities are exploited. Although in strategic maneuvering these three aspects always go together, and are intrinsically connected, in argumentative practice often one particular aspect is more prominently manifested than the other aspects. The strategic maneuvering may, for instance, come primarily to the fore in the topical choice that is made, say by the emphatic use of an argument from authority (ex autoritate), or in the way audience adaptation is realized, say by emphatically adopting some of the other party’s arguments (conciliatio) for defending one’s own standpoint, or in the use of striking presentational techniques, say by an emphatic repetition of the standpoint (repetitio). This is why it is, in our view, for the sake of recognition recommendable to refer to the mode of strategic maneuvering at issue in first instance by naming its most conspicuous manifestation in either of the three aspects, “maneuvering by argument from authority,” “maneuvering by conciliation(n),” “maneuvering by repetition,” and so forth. Subsequently, the four parameters we discussed can be used to analyze the strategic function the particular mode of maneuvering referred to may have in the case of the maneuvering concerned. In due course, when a classification of modes of strategic maneuvering has been developed, these modes may be replaced in the analysis by “types” and can be given the names that are most appropriate to the types in the taxonomy.
7.
Fallacies as derailments of strategic maneuvering
Although in strategic maneuvering aiming for dialectical objectives and trying to reach rhetorical aims can go well together, this – of course – does not automatically mean that in practice there is always a perfect balance between pursuing the two objectives. If a party allows his commitment to a critical exchange of argumentative moves to be overruled by the aim of persuading the opponent, so that his moves are no longer in agreement with the critical norms, we say that
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the strategic maneuvering has got “derailed” (van Eemeren & Houtlosser, 2003). Such derailments occur when a rule for critical discussion has been violated in the discourse. In that case, realizing the rhetorical aim has gained the upper hand at the expense of achieving the dialectical objective. Because derailments of strategic maneuvering always involve a violation of a rule for critical discussion, they are, as has been explained in standard pragma-dialectics, on a par with the wrong moves in argumentative discourse designated as fallacies (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1992). Viewed from this perspective, fallacies are violations of critical discussion rules that come about as derailments of strategic maneuvering. The difference between legitimate manifestations of strategic maneuvering and manifestations that are fallacious is that in the latter case at the point in the discourse where they occur certain soundness conditions have not been met that apply to the use of the mode of strategic maneuvering concerned in the activity type and argumentative situation in which the maneuvering takes place. In principle, each mode of strategic maneuvering has as it were its own continuum (or in some cases its distinguishing classification) of sound and fallacious acting and the boundaries between the two are not in every case crystal clear. In the end, fallacy judgments are contextual judgments that depend more often than not on the specific circumstances of situated argumentative acting. The criteria for determining whether or not a certain norm for critical discussion has been violated may be dependent on the institutional conventions regarding how argumentative discourse is disciplined prevailing in the argumentative activity type in which the strategic maneuvering takes place – in a law case, for instance, somewhat different criteria will apply to making an appeal to authority than in a public debate, so that making an appeal to authority by referring to a certain section of the law or to precedent may be a perfectly legitimate move in the argumentation stage of the adjudication process whereas making such an appeal in a scientific discussion may not be regarded an appropriate move. This predicament should, of course, not lead us to the hasty conclusion that there are no clear criteria for determining whether strategic maneuvering has gone astray, or that all such criteria are always context-dependent, but only to the conclusion that, depending on the institutional requirements, these criteria may vary to some extent from the one activity type to the other, leaving room for the possibility that in the one activity type the criteria are somewhat different, more precise, more specific or more elaborate, than in the other. This account of the fallacies as derailments of strategic maneuvering explains why it may, as a matter of course, not be immediately apparent to all concerned that a fallacy has been committed, so that fallacies can sometimes pass unnoticed (van Eemeren & Houtlosser, 2008). First of all, fallacies generally have sound counterparts that are manifestations of the same mode of strategic maneuvering;
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they are not “completely different animals” that are immediately recognizable as such, so that one can be easily fooled. Second, as Jackson (1995) has pointed out, it is an “assumption of reasonableness” in argumentative discourse that each party will normally uphold a commitment to the rules of critical discussion, so that the presumption of reasonableness is conferred on every discussion move, also when it happens to be a discussion move that is in fact fallacious. Third, the criteria for determining whether a certain move is fallacious may vary to some extent from context to context, so that one may easily be confused about what exactly the relevant criteria are, especially when the strategic maneuvering takes place in an argumentative activity type one is not really familiar with. Echoing the logical Standard Definition of a fallacy, which was revealed and criticized by Hamblin (1970), we might say – in post-Hamblin pragma-dialectical terms – that fallacious strategic maneuvering is strategic maneuvering that seems to comply with the critical discussion rules, but does not. Because, as Aristotle (1965 ed.) already demonstrated in On Sophistical Refutations, none of the parties will be very keen on portraying themselves as being unreasonable, deviations from the rules for critical discussion are often also hard to detect. To realize a purpose that is potentially at odds with observing a particular discussion rule, rather than resorting to completely different means, they will be inclined to stick to the dialectical means for achieving their objective that are considered reasonable and “stretch” the use of these means in such a way that they are able to realize their purpose (cf. Kienpointner, 2006, 2009).
8.
Strategic maneuvering by appealing to an authority
In argumentative activity types the conduct of argumentative discourse can be disciplined in various ways. As a case in point, we discuss the demarcation of non-fallacious and fallacious moves in one particular mode of strategic maneuvering in the argumentative activity type of an informal deliberation. The mode of strategic maneuvering we have in mind is defending a standpoint by advancing an “argument from authority,” a subtype of the type of argumentation known as “symptomatic argumentation,” which is also called “sign argumentation.” Symptomatic (or sign) argumentation is based on an argument scheme that presents the acceptability of the premise (argument) as a sign of the acceptability of the conclusion (standpoint) by establishing a relationship of concomitance between having the property mentioned in the premise and having the property mentioned in the conclusion (“Paul certainly loves cheese; he is a Dutchman, you know”). In the case of an argument from authority the transition of acceptance is brought about by introducing in the premise an external source that has a certain kind of
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knowledge or expertise and then appealing to this source to justify a conclusion dependent on such knowledge or expertise. This happens, for instance, in “The competence for learning a language is innate – Noam Chomsky, the outstanding linguist, says so.” Like using other arguments from sign, using an argument from authority is potentially a sound mode of strategic maneuvering. In a great many cases we are fully justified in supporting our claims by referring to an authority who is supposed to know – in argumentative reality this is in fact often the only sensible thing we can do. If the source we are referring to is indeed a good source to rely on in the case concerned, was to be taken seriously when he made the statement referred to, and is quoted correctly, an appeal to authority can be unproblematic and may even be conclusive. In argumentative practice, however, strategic maneuvering by means of arguments from authority can also derail. In a particular case an appeal to an authority may not be justified because one or more of the ‘critical questions’ that serve as the criteria for checking if the authority is used legitimately and correctly in the argumentative activity type concerned cannot be answered satisfactorily so that the argument violates the pragma-dialectical Argument Scheme Rule and must be considered an argumentum ad verecundiam. To mark the important distinction between non-fallacious and fallacious strategic maneuvering as clearly as possible, we use the traditional – often Latinized – names of the fallacies, such as argumentum ad verecundiam, exclusively for the incorrect and fallacious cases. In different argumentative activity types different criteria may apply for complying with the soundness norm pertaining to the argument-from-authority variant of the Argument Scheme Rule. Imagine that we are playing a game of scrabble. At a certain moment you may claim to have compiled a word, but I doubt that the combination of letters you have laid out really constitutes an English word. In the informal deliberation we are now having about this you use an argument from authority to defend your claim: “This is an English word, because it is in the dictionary.” Whether your appeal to authority is in this case a legitimate strategic maneuver depends in the first place on the agreement that exists or that the players – you and I – have made prior to playing the game as to the testing procedure that is to be followed for making out whether or not a would-be English word is to count as an English word. If there was an agreement that in case of doubt we let the dictionary decide, and you cite the dictionary correctly, then there is nothing wrong with your argumentative move – the move would even be a strong one, unless we had also agreed in advance that the Concise Oxford Dictionary would be the ultimate judge while you are referring to Webster’s. If, on the other hand, the agreement was that a combination of letters would get recognition as an English word only if the word and its meaning are known to all players, your appeal to
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the authority of the dictionary would clearly be irrelevant, and therefore fallacious. If, finally, nothing was agreed upon in advance concerning how to decide in such cases, no rule for critical discussion has as yet been violated, but the use of the argument from authority may very well introduce a new topic of discussion concerning its legitimacy. In a great many argumentative activity types it is not completely up to the participants to decide on the soundness criteria that are to be applied. These criteria are often expressis verbis or silently imposed on the participants by the institutional context the argumentative activity type is part of. Then they belong to the conventional preconditions for argumentative discourse future participants have become familiar with by way of education or during socialization. It is not hard to imagine that similar preconditions apply to other modes of strategic maneuvering carried out in the same activity type or in other activity types. In our opinion, it is our task as argumentation theorists to describe not only the general soundness conditions of different modes of strategic maneuvering but also the specific soundness conditions applying to these modes of strategic maneuvering in the variety of argumentative activity types and subtypes that can be found in argumentative reality.
9.
Strategic maneuvering by pointing out an inconsistency
As a second case of disciplining argumentative conduct, we discuss the demarcation of non-fallacious and fallacious instances of a mode of strategic maneuvering used in the opening stage of a critical discussion in which the one party attacks the other party by pointing out a logical or pragmatic inconsistency between one of that party’s starting points and a starting point that party assumed on a different occasion (van Eemeren & Houtlosser, 2004). Pointing out such an inconsistency can be a perfectly legitimate – and even very strong – strategic maneuver, but it can also derail and result in a tu quoque fallacy. When considering inconsistencies between starting points we must distinguish between two kinds of (explicit or implicit) starting points: procedural starting points and material starting points. Ideally, both kinds of starting points should be fully clear to the participants in an argumentative discourse, so that the parties involved not only know how the discussion is going to be conducted but also what propositions they can safely bring to bear once the discussion has come off the ground. In order to conduct a proper critical discussion, the parties must agree in the opening stage (if only implicitly) about the division of the burden of proof, the discussion rules and the propositions that may be unconditionally used in the argumentation stage to defend the standpoints at issue. In argumentative
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practice, in certain institutional contexts agreements about particular procedural and material starting points are presupposed. As far as procedural starting points are concerned, this goes, for instance, for activity (sub)types such as parliamentary debate. As far as material starting points are concerned, in a Dutch criminal law case admissions made by the accused in the interrogation preceding the actual trial provide a clear example: They can be used in court to establish conclusions weighing against or in favor of the accused, as the case may be. In informal activity types there are usually no explicit agreements as to the material starting points. Generally, the parties use certain propositions as their starting points without asking for the other party’s consent, but taking this consent, rightly or wrongly, for granted. All the same, there are a lot of cases in which it is first negotiated in a sub-discussion whether or not particular propositions may serve as a common starting point. Viewed dialectically, the parties are under no obligation to provide a reason for not admitting a proposition as a common starting point (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 2004: Ch. 6). Viewed rhetorically, however, it may be better if they do: It is generally regarded of no use to start a discussion with people who refuse to commit themselves to any common starting point or, without giving any further explanation, to a specific starting point. Giving reasons for a refusal to admit a proposition as a common starting point can be a perfectly sound way of strategic maneuvering, but it can also derail into a fallacy, e.g., the fallacy of tu quoque. In the tu quoque case, the reason-giving amounts to saying that the protagonist’s proposal to treat a proposition as a starting point is not acceptable because the proposition is inconsistent with something the protagonist has said or implied (by what he said or did) on a different occasion. When discussing the soundness criteria that make it possible to decide whether or not an antagonist maneuvers in an admissible way when refusing to admit a proposition as a starting point because of a proclaimed inconsistency between the proposed proposition and the protagonist’s (verbal or non-verbal) behavior on a different occasion, we observe that the soundness conditions hinge on three points: (1) how is inconsistency to be defined so that it is possible to determine whether two propositions are logically or pragmatically inconsistent (a point of definition), (2) how can an accusation by the antagonist be incorporated that pertains to an inconsistency between the proposition presently proposed as a starting point and something that was earlier done (a matter of scope), and (3) what is in practice to be understood by “on a different occasion,” so that it can be determined in a specific case whether pointing at an inconsistency from a dialectical perspective makes sense (a quasi-empirical issue). All three issues need to be addressed.
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10. Conclusion Summing up my expose, in analyzing the strategic function of a piece of maneuvering in argumentative discourse we have to take into account, first, which results can be achieved by making the argumentative move that is made, so that it can be explained what kind of outcome may be aimed for by this kind of strategic maneuvering. The spectrum of relevant options open to be filled out in the analytic overview can be of help in this endeavor. Second, we have to take into account which reasonable options are available when making the argumentative move so that it can be explained what route is taken by carrying out this particular kind of strategic maneuvering. The dialectical profile for the moves that are analytically relevant at this juncture in the discussion can be of help in this endeavor. Third, we have to take into account the institutional constraints imposed on the argumentative discourse that is carried out, so that it can be explained what the conventional preconditions are that the strategic maneuvering must meet. An understanding of the kind of activity type in which, or communicative and interactional background against which, the strategic maneuvering takes place can be of help in this endeavor. Fourth, we have to take into account what is the actual state of affairs in the discourse when the strategic maneuvering takes place, so that it can be explained to which situational demands exactly the strategic maneuvering must respond. An understanding of the commitment sets of the arguers that define the argumentative situation can be of help in this endeavor. If these four parameters are duly considered in analyzing the maneuvering that manifests itself in the discourse at the point the analyst is focusing on, it can be explained more easily and with a stronger foundation which strategic function a particular mode of maneuvering, characterized by a specific combination of topical choice, audience orientation and presentational design, may fulfill in the discourse. By outlining a theoretical perspective on argumentative discourse that integrates rhetorical insight concerning the effectiveness of argumentative discourse in the standard pragma-dialectical framework pertaining to the reasonableness of argumentative discourse (van Eemeren & Houtlosser, 2002), we have developed an extended version of the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation. This extended pragma-dialectical theory makes it possible to take the strategic design of the discourse into consideration in the analysis of argumentative discourse so that the reconstruction can be further refined and better accounted for. Because the strategic function of argumentative moves can now be taken into account, the extended theory also allows for a more accurate and realistic treatment of the fallacies in the evaluation of argumentative discourse. This treatment explains the potential persuasiveness of the fallacies as well as their treacherous character. In this
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way a new perspective for the study of argumentation is created that overcomes the traditional division between the dialectical approach and the rhetorical approach to argumentative discourse by enabling an integrated approach in which both dialectical and rhetorical insight are systematically taken into account. In this way we have tried to explain how the standard pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation can be extended with insights regarding the effectiveness of argumentation in specific argumentative activity types. This means that in order to make progress with this project the context in which the argumentative discourse takes place should be duly taken into account. Examining how the context in which strategic maneuvering is conducted influences the way in which argumentative discourse is conducted and the way in which the quality of argumentative discourse is valued is, in our view, one of the main challenges for argumentation theorists in the near future. In our opinion, the theoretical perspective we have developed in our extended pragma-dialectical theory provides a suitable point of departure for such an enterprise.
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Goodnight, G. T. (2009). Strategic maneuvering in direct to consumer drug advertising: A study in argumentation theory and New Institutional Theory. In F. H. van Eemeren (Ed.), Examining argumentation in context: Fifteen studies on strategic maneuvering (Chapter 5). Dordrecht: Springer. Hamblin, C. L. (1970). Fallacies. London: Methuen [Reprinted at Newport News: Vale Press]. Ieţcu-Fairclough, I. (2009). Legitimation and strategic maneuvering in the political field. In F. H. van Eemeren (Ed.), Examining argumentation in context: Fifteen studies on strategic maneuvering (Chapter 8). Dordrecht: Springer. Jackson, S. (1995). Fallacies and heuristics. In F. H. van Eemeren, R. Grootendorst, J. A. Blair & C. A. Willard (Eds.), Analysis and evaluation. Proceedings of the third conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation (pp. 257–269). Amsterdam: Sic Sat. Jacobs, C. S. (2007). Nonfallacious rhetorical strategies: Lyndon Johnson’s Daisy Ad. Argumentation, 20(4), 421–424 . Kauffeld, F. (2002). Pivotal issues and norms in rhetorical theories of argumentation. In F. H. van Eemeren & P. Houtlosser (Eds.), Dialectic and rhetoric: The warp and woof of argumentation analysis (pp. 97–118). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic. Kennedy, G. A. (1994). A new history of classical rhetoric. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kienpointner, M. (2006). How to present fallacious messages persuasively: The case of the “Nigeria Spam Letters”. In P. Houtlosser & M. A. van Rees (Eds.), Considering pragma-dialectics (pp. 161–173). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Kienpointner, M. (2009). Plausible and fallacious strategies to silence one’s opponent. In F. H. van Eemeren (Ed.), Examining argumentation in context: Fifteen studies on strategic maneuvering (Chapter 4). Dordrecht: Springer. Krabbe, E. C. W. (2002). Meeting in the house of Callias: An historical perspective on rhetoric and dialectic. In F. H. van Eemeren & P. Houtlosser (Eds.), Dialectic and rhetoric: The warp and woof of argumentation analysis (pp. 29–40). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic. Leeman, A. D. (1992). Rhetoric versus argumentation theory. In F. H. van Eemeren, R. Grootendorst, J. A. Blair, & C. A. Willard (Eds.), Argumentation illuminated (pp. 12–22). Amsterdam: Sic Sat. Leff, M. (2002). The relation between rhetoric and dialectic in a classical and a modern perspective. In F. H. van Eemeren & P. Houtlosser (Eds.), Dialectic and rhetoric: The warp and woof of argumentation analysis (pp. 53–63). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic. Leff, M. (2006). Rhetoric, dialectic, and the functions of argument. In P. Houtlosser & M. A. van Rees (Eds.), Considering pragma-dialectics (pp. 199–209). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Mack, P. (1993). Renaissance argument: Valla and Agricola in the traditions of rhetoric and dialectic. Leiden: Brill. Meerhoff, C. G. (1988). Agricola et Ramus: dialectique et rhétorique. In F. Akkerman & A. J. Vanderjagt (Eds.), Rodolphus Agricola Phrisius 1444–1485 (pp. 270–280). Leiden: Brill. Mohammed, D. (2009). Manoeuvring strategically in Prime Minister’s question time. In F. H. van Eemeren (Ed.), Examining argumentation in context: Fifteen studies on strategic maneuvering (Chapter 10). Dordrecht: Springer. Murphy, J. J., & Katula, R. A. (Eds). (1994). A synoptic history of classical rhetoric. Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press. (Originally published in 1972).
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O’Keefe, D. (2009). Persuasive effects of strategic maneuvering. Some findings from meta-analyses of experimental persuasion effects research. In F. H. van Eemeren (Ed.), Examining argumentation in context: Fifteen studies on strategic maneuvering (Chapter 15). Dordrecht: Springer. Perelman, Ch., & Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1969). The new rhetoric: A treatise on argumentation [Translation of La nouvelle rhétorique: Traité de l’argumentation. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1958). Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Plato (1914). Phaedrus (H. N. Fowler, Trans.). Cambridge, M. A.: Harvard University Press. Quintilian (1920). The Institutio oratoria of Quintilian. London: Heineman. Reboul, O. (1989). The figure and the argument. In M. Meyer (Ed.), From metaphysics to rhetoric (169–181). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Rees, M. A. van (2009). Strategic manoeuvring with dissociation. In F. H. van Eemeren (Ed.), Examining argumentation in context: Fifteen studies on strategic maneuvering (Chapter 2). Dordrecht: Springer. Rigotti, E. (2006). Relevance of context-bound loci to topical potential in the argumentation stage. Argumentation, 20(4), 519–540. Rocci, A. (2009). Manoeuvring with tropes. The case of the metaphorical polyphonic and framing of arguments. In F. H. van Eemeren (Ed.), Examining argumentation in context: Fifteen studies on strategic maneuvering (Chapter 14). Dordrecht: Springer. Schulz, P., & Rubinelli, S. (2008). Arguing “for” the patient: Informed consent and strategic maneuvering in doctor-patient interaction. Argumentation, 22(3), 423–432. Simons, H. W. (1990). The rhetoric of inquiry as an intellectual movement. In H. W. Simons (Ed.), The rhetorical turn: Invention and persuasion in the conduct of inquiry (pp. 1–31). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Snoeck Henkemans, A. F. (2009). The use of praeteritio in strategic manoeuvring. In F. H. van Eemeren (Ed.), Examining argumentation in context: Fifteen studies on strategic maneuvering (Chapter 13). Dordrecht: Springer. Tindale, Ch. W. (2004). Rhetorical argumentation: principles of theory and practice. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Tindale, Ch. W. (2009). Constrained maneuvering: Rhetoric as a rational enterprise. In F. H. van Eemeren (Ed.), Examining argumentation in context: Fifteen studies on strategic maneuvering (Chapter 3). Dordrecht: Springer. Tonnard, Y. (2009). The right words for a topic shift: How the choice of presentational means can be effective in strategic manoeuvring. In F. H. van Eemeren (Ed.), Examining argumentation in context: Fifteen studies on strategic maneuvering (Chapter 12). Dordrecht: Springer. Toulmin, S. E. (2001). Return to reason. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press. 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. (1990). Three perspectives on argument: Rhetoric, dialectic, logic. In R. Trapp & J. Schuetz (Eds.), Perspectives on argumentation: Essays in the honor of Wayne Brockriede (pp. 9–26). Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland. Zarefsky, D. (2006a). Strategic maneuvering through persuasive definitions: Implications for dialectic and rhetoric. Argumentation, 20(4), 399–416. Zarefsky, D. (2006b). The ten rules of pragma-dialectics and validity in argumentation. In P. Houtlosser & M. A. van Rees (Eds.), Considering pragma-dialectics (pp. 313–323). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
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Zarefsky, D. (2009). Strategic maneuvering in political argumentation. In F. H. van Eemeren (Ed.), Examining argumentation in context: Fifteen studies on strategic maneuvering (Chapter 7). Dordrecht: Springer.
Strategic maneuvering with dissociation M. A. van Rees
1.
Dialectical and rhetorical effects of dissociation
Dissociation is one of the two general categories of argument schemes, association and dissociation, distinguished by Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969) in their taxonomy of argumentative techniques The New Rhetoric. In the various argument schemes that belong to association, the speaker establishes a link between two independent entities in order to transfer judgments of the audience about the one thing to the other one. In dissociation, the speaker splits up a notion considered by the audience to form a unitary concept into two new notions, one of which comprises the aspects of the original notion that the speaker considers real or central (term II), the other, the aspects that he considers apparent or peripheral (term I). Dissociation can be used in various ways in argumentative discussions. In a dialectical reconstruction of these discussions, we can assign these various uses of dissociation to the different stages of a critical discussion (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1984, 1992, 2004) and we can analyze the dialectical functions that dissociation has in these various locations for resolving the difference of opinion. Once we have done that, we can examine how dissociation is employed to perform these dialectical functions in such a way that the rhetorical aim of the speaker, to reach a position that is the most advantageous for getting his standpoint accepted by the audience, so that the difference of opinion may be resolved in his or her own favor, is served best. In this way, we can explore the possibilities that dissociation offers a speaker or writer to maneuver strategically between dialectical reasonableness and rhetorical effectiveness (van Eemeren and Houtlosser 1997, 2002). In earlier work (van Rees 2005), I have analyzed the dialectical functions of dissociation in the different stages of a critical discussion. In this paper, I will show how dissociation can be used for strategic maneuvering in these stages. I will use some of the same material I have treated earlier, now with this new question in mind.
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In general, dissociation may enhance dialectical reasonableness because at the basis of dissociation there are two speech acts, distinction and definition, that belong to the type that van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1984) called usage declaratives, which have the function of clarifying linguistic usage and structuring our conception of reality. Dissociation involves distinction, because through dissociation a notion that the audience regards as a conceptual unit is split up into two new notions, each comprising part of the original one. And it involves definition, because, as a result, the original term is newly defined and alongside the old one a new term is called into being, receiving a definition of its own (or the old term is replaced by two new terms, each with their own definition). Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, in their extensive discussion of philosophical pairs that are the result of dissociation, have shown how dissociation may indeed be used to achieve greater precision and conceptual sharpness. In general, then, dissociation may serve dialectical reasonableness by enabling the speaker to execute the various dialectical moves in the successive stages of a critical discussion with optimal clarity and precision, making the statements in which it occurs optimally welldefined and well-delineated. In general, dissociation may promote rhetorical effectiveness, because it is a technique through which a speaker may present a particular state of affairs in a light that is favorable to the speaker’s interests. As Zarefsky (1997, 2004) phrases it, dissociation may be used to define the situation. The granddaughter of Maria Montessori, responding to an accusation that her grandmother was vain and ambitious by countering with the dissociations that ‘she was not vain but loved beautiful clothes’ and that ‘she was driven, something different from ambition’, put Montessori in a rather more favorable light than her critics did. In addition, this definition of the situation through dissociation is often performed in such a way as to rule out any further argument. The distinction that the dissociation makes is presented as common knowledge and the two resulting notions are authoritatively declared different, as we may also observe in the response of Maria Montessori’s granddaughter just cited.
2.
Dissociation in the various stages of critical discussion
Apart from the general effects just mentioned, the dialectical and rhetorical effects of dissociation depend on the precise place in which dissociation occurs in the various stages of a critical discussion. Dissociation may be used for strategic maneuvering in all the stages of a critical discussion, the confrontation stage, the opening stage, the argumentation stage, and the concluding stage. In each stage, there are specific dialectical moves that have to be executed. I will first mention
Strategic maneuvering with dissociation
these dialectical moves, then I will specify in what way dissociation contributes to executing these moves, and finally I will sketch the rhetorical gain that dissociation can bring in the execution of these moves.
2.1 Confrontation stage The confrontation stage of a critical discussion consists of three successive moves: the protagonist brings forward a standpoint, the antagonist raises doubt against this standpoint or criticizes it by bringing forward an opposite standpoint, and the protagonist responds to this criticism, either by maintaining his standpoint, or by withdrawing it. In each of these moves, dissociation can be employed.1
2.1.1 Standpoint In the first move of the confrontation stage, in which the protagonist brings forward a standpoint, because dissociation involves a distinction, the specific contribution of dissociation to performing this dialectical move is that it serves to delineate a particular standpoint against the background of other possible standpoints.2 An example can be found in the following passage from an internet review of a Dutch comedian: (1) In this time, in which the country appears to have an urgent need for comedians, real originality is absent. [Follow a number of examples that serve to support this claim – MAvR] http://www.sjaakbral.nl/recensies.html
The author brings forward the standpoint that real originality among Dutch comedians is absent. This standpoint contains term II of a dissociation of the term ‘originality’, implicitly opposing it to term I, ‘originality which only is apparent’. The rhetorical gain of dissociation in the first move of the confrontation stage is that the particular standpoint that it helps to delineate is easier to defend. First of all, through an expression such as ‘real’ or ‘true’, the standpoint becomes vague, because it is not clear what it is that distinguishes real originality from its fake equivalents. Thus, the protagonist can choose that interpretation that suits him best. In fact, as Zarefsky et al. (1984) showed with their analysis of Reagan’s use of the expression ‘the truly needy’, through this vagueness, the protagonist can maneuver to persuade radically different opponents, for example, in the case of Reagan’s defense of his proposal to curtail social security, both people who want to give financial support to the needy, and people who want to limit the use of social security. In addition, the dissociation makes it possible for the protagonist to immunize his standpoint against criticism. If someone points to a counterexample,
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for example a number of obvious cases of originality in Dutch entertainers, the protagonist can always maintain that in those counterexamples there is no question of real originality.
2.1.2 Criticism against the standpoint In the second move of the confrontation stage, dissociation may occur in the criticism of the antagonist when he criticizes the standpoint brought forward by the protagonist by presenting an opposing standpoint. The antagonist then becomes protagonist of an opposing standpoint. The specific contribution of dissociation to performing this dialectical move, because it involves making a distinction between what is and what is not the case, is that the antagonist becomes protagonist of a multiple standpoint: not only does he bring forward the opposing standpoint, but he brings forward a particular other standpoint as well. The granddaughter of Maria Montessori, answering her grandmother’s critics, not only claims that Montessori was not vain, but also that she loved beautiful clothes. The rhetorical effect of dissociation in this move is that the standpoint of the initial protagonist is set aside and replaced by a standpoint that is more to the liking of the antagonist. This new standpoint, because the distinction made in dissociation is between central and peripheral aspects of a notion, tones down the standpoint of the initial protagonist. Maria Montessori’s granddaughter, replacing the allegation that Montessori is vain by the claim that she (merely) loved beautiful clothes, tones down the original accusation and thus removes the sting from it. A mere denial would, given the facts of the situation as the participants perceive it, be hard to defend. The dissociation offers a different perspective on those facts and thus opens the possibility for a defensible position. Moreover, because the standpoint of the initial protagonist is replaced by another one, it ends up being dismissed, if not refuted, without further ado. If Montessori’s granddaughter would have defended her grandmother through a mere denial of the allegations of her critics, that would have been merely the word of one party against that of the other, and one that would, given the facts of the situation as perceived by the participants, be at least questionable. Through the dissociation, Montessori’s granddaughter makes it appear that her opponents are mistaken; she gives her standpoint the status of a correction and of the better, if not indeed the last word on the matter. As a result, the opposing standpoint for which she does carry the burden of proof seems no longer to be in need of any argument. 2.1.3 Maintaining or withdrawing In the third move of the confrontation stage, the protagonist can use dissociation in his response to the criticism of the antagonist in two ways: to maintain his standpoint or to withdraw it (in the latter case the discussion ends there and then).
Strategic maneuvering with dissociation
Maintaining The specific dialectical contribution of dissociation by means of which the protagonist, after his standpoint has been criticized, maintains it, is that he gives a particular interpretation of his original standpoint and maintains his standpoint in that interpretation, while withdrawing it in another one. An example of this use of dissociation occurred in a feud between Eurocommissar Frits Bolkestein and TV personality Fons de Poel, in which Bolkestein initially brought forward the standpoint that de Poel made a fraudulent declaration against him with the IRS. De Poel criticizes this standpoint by denying that he did. Bolkestein reacts to this criticism in a rectification, saying ‘I meant “fraudulent declaration” not in the technical, fiscal sense of the word, but in the sense of ‘‘cooperating in giving a patently false impression of things with regard to my tax declaration”’. In this rectification, then, Bolkestein implicitly admits that de Poel did not make a fraudulent declaration in the technical, fiscal sense of the word, but at the same time persists in his opinion that de Poel made a fraudulent declaration, now in the sense of giving a patently false impression of things with regard to his (Bolkestein’s) tax declaration. The latter sense is presented as the one that matters, the former one as merely technical. The rhetorical effect of this use of dissociation is that the protagonist can grant a concession on an interpretation of his standpoint that is presented as marginal, while taking a firm position on an interpretation that suits him better and that is presented as crucial. In this way, the protagonist can evade the criticism he received, by shifting to a standpoint that is easier for him to defend while at the same time giving the impression that he is maintaining his standpoint and did not shift positions. Another example can be found in a passage from the first presidential debate between President Bush and Senator Kerry (September 30, 2004). Bush accuses Kerry of changing positions on the war in Iraq and brings forward the standpoint that ‘there must be certainty from the U.S. president’. Kerry counters that ‘certainty’ can get you in trouble and that it is better to acknowledge the facts and adapt your policy accordingly. Bush reacts to this opposition with a dissociation: ‘I fully agree that one should shift tactics and we will (…) But what I won’t do is change my core values’. The dissociation between mere tactics and core values enables Bush, by granting a concession on a minor point, to move away from a standpoint that has been criticized and to present his standpoint in a form that is better able to withstand criticism. In the meantime, Bush makes it appear that he firmly maintains his original standpoint. Withdrawing Dissociation can also be employed by the protagonist when, after his original standpoint has received criticism, he gives it up. The specific contribution to this
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dialectical move of dissociation is that it enables the protagonist to give a particular interpretation of his standpoint (which is presented as crucial) in which he withdraws it, while retaining it in another, irrelevant, interpretation. As a consequence, there is no longer a difference of opinion. An example of this can be found in a fragment from a radio interview with the public relations officer of the Public Prosecutor of the city of Rotterdam, Mr. Wesseling, in which he announces that Rotterdam, unlike the city of Groningen, will not prohibit posting an offending poster by the artist Serrano whose work is exhibited in Groningen: (2) W: yeah well this is the Rotterdam point of view what I just told you I: isn’t it a bit strange that in a small country like The Netherlands such diverging opinions reign between two large cities? W: eh well for the moment yes you assume that there is a difference of opinion it could very well be the case that in practice in the end it will lead to the same result
Implicit in Wesseling's first utterance is the standpoint that Rotterdam has its own point of view. When the interviewer questions the desirability of this, Wesseling distances himself from this standpoint. Dissociating opinions in the abstract from opinions in practice, he claims that ‘in practice’ there is no difference of opinion between the two cities, in other words, Rotterdam does not have its own point of view. So, the PR officer, after the initial standpoint to which he committed himself received criticism, gives it up and there is no longer a difference of opinion. The rhetorical effect of the dissociation in this move is that the protagonist backs out from his commitment to a standpoint that he initially put forward, but makes it look like this is not the case and like he is not acting inconsistently: after all, his initial standpoint regarded something else, which moreover comprised an unimportant aspect of the matter.
2.2 Opening stage In the opening stage, among other things, the discussants jointly establish the material starting points for the discussion, the concessions on the basis of which the standpoints will be defended. Dissociation can be used in proposing material starting points and in attacking these proposals. In actual argumentative discussions, the opening stage seldom is explicitly executed, and therefore, in these discussions, we usually find the proposed material starting points and the criticism against these proposals in the arguments that are brought forward and in the criticism that is raised against the tenability of these arguments.
Strategic maneuvering with dissociation
2.2.1 Starting points When a protagonist uses dissociation in proposing a starting point (which in practice shows up as dissociation in an argument), on a sublevel something similar happens to what happens on the main level when a protagonist uses dissociation in presenting a standpoint. The dialectical result of dissociation by the protagonist in the opening stage is that the protagonist delineates a specific starting point for the defense of his standpoint against the background of other possible starting points. An example of this use of dissociation is provided by an ad that a new gossip magazine placed in the daily newspapers. In the ad, the magazine is promoted by the slogan ‘InMagazine, the weekly entertainment glossy about the real stars’. Through the dissociation InMagazine is implicitly opposed to gossip magazines that are about people who only can pretend to being a star, and this forms the starting point for the defense of the standpoint that we should buy the former magazine. The rhetorical effect of dissociation in proposing a starting point is that it enables the protagonist to choose a starting point that serves him best in the defense of his standpoint and to rule out other possible starting points that suit him less well. Of course there are other magazines on the market that keep the reader up about the lives of famous people, but InMagazine covers the real stars, so that is the magazine to buy. Of course, the additional rhetorical advantages that accompany the use of dissociation in bringing forward a standpoint, from making the statement agreeably vague to immunizing it against criticism, pertain here, too. 2.2.2 Criticism against starting points When an antagonist uses dissociation in his criticism against the protagonist’s proposal of a starting point (which, in practice, shows up as dissociation in an attack against the tenability of an argument), on the sublevel, something similar happens to what happens on the main level when an antagonist uses dissociation in attacking a standpoint. The dialectical result of dissociation by the antagonist in the opening stage is that the starting point that the protagonist proposed is rejected and is replaced by a different starting point. The following example presents an instance of the use of dissociation by the antagonist in the opening stage. Former Traffic Minister Jorritsma had been brought to book in Parliament because she wanted once again to adapt the allowable noise levels for Schiphol airport. Parliament defends the standpoint that adaptation is not to be allowed on the basis of the starting point that adaptation comes down to tolerating (and tolerating is no longer an allowable option). The minister defends her policy by attacking, through dissociation, the equivalence that forms the starting point of the argument made by Parliament.
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(3) According to Jorritsma, the cabinet will not revert to a tolerance policy, as it was applied in 1997. “That was once, but never again, we said at the time. But tolerating is something quite different from anticipating on a change of law which everybody thinks should be put into effect.” De Volkskrant 22-1-1998
Jorritsma contests that adapting the allowable noise levels is the same as carrying out a tolerance policy. She dissociates between tolerance and anticipating a change of law that everybody thinks should be put into effect. The dissociation serves to reject the starting point of the symptomatic argument that Parliament brings forward. The dialectical result of attacking a starting point is that the protagonist can no longer defend his standpoint on the basis of this starting point. An additional dialectical result specific for the use of dissociation is that, just as was the case with attacking a standpoint, through dissociation a multiple difference of opinion, this time on a sublevel, is created. The antagonist does not only assert that something is not the case, but he also asserts that something else is the case (Jorritsma, for example, implicitly claims that adapting allowable noise levels is the same as anticipating a change of law that everybody thinks should be put into effect), and thus he creates a starting point for an opposing standpoint of his own. The rhetorical effect of an attack by means of dissociation on a starting point is the same as that of such an attack on the standpoint. The starting point of the protagonist is simply replaced by one that suits the antagonist better, toning down the original one, and as a result the protagonist’s proposal for a starting point is resolutely dismissed, without any argument. In this way, the antagonist can escape a conclusion that he would be committed to on the basis of his acceptance of the starting point. In addition, the antagonist establishes a starting point that is eminently suitable for defending an opposite standpoint of his own. The debate about adaptation of the noise levels of Schiphol airport is a case in point. Minister Jorritsma tries to escape the conclusion that she would be committed to if she accepted the starting point that adapting the noise levels comes down to tolerating (in view of her earlier acceptance of the symptomatic relationship ‘tolerating cannot be allowed any longer’ that Parliament refers to). It is difficult to just straightforwardly deny the tenability of the starting point; after all, in the past, tolerating was just what everyone called the adaptation of the noise levels. The dissociation between tolerating and anticipating a change of law allows her to present a different perspective on the situation. Note that she doesn’t even take the trouble to assert, let alone defend, that adaptation does not come down to tolerating, she just archly states that tolerating is something different from anticipating. Last but not least, she now has created a starting point that suits her own position much
Strategic maneuvering with dissociation
better: adapting the allowable noise levels is perfectly all right; after all, it merely anticipates on a change of law that everybody wants.3
2.3 Argumentation stage In the argumentation stage, the starting points that have been established in the opening stage are connected to the standpoint by the protagonist by means of the application of an argument scheme. The antagonist criticizes the application of this argument scheme by asking critical questions. When the criticism is directed against the argument scheme that connects the argument with the standpoint of the protagonist, the antagonist does not reject the argument as such, but questions whether it is relevant or sufficient for the standpoint. The antagonist can ask three kinds of critical questions, undermining the relationship between argument and standpoint. In each of these critical questions, the antagonist can employ dissociation. By means of dissociation, the antagonist can attack the relationship as such, pointing out that X is not really typical for, a real cause of, or really similar to Z (first critical question); he can attack the second term of the relationship, pointing out that the argument does not support the standpoint that has been put forward, but another one (second critical question); and he can attack the first term of the relationship, pointing out that it is not the argument that has been put forward that supports the standpoint, but another one – that happens to be not applicable – (third critical question).4
2.3.1 First critical question With dissociation in the first critical question, the very relationship that the protagonist posits between the two terms of the argument scheme that connects the argument and the standpoint is attacked, by showing that the relationship is only apparent, not real.5 The one thing is not a real characteristic, not a real cause, not a real analogue of the other thing, but only an apparent one. An example of the use of dissociation in such an attack can be found in the following passage from a letter to the editor of an Australian newspaper: (4) Putting more buses on roads will not solve southeast Queensland’s transport problem. It fixes the symptom of too many cars on the road by replacing them with too many buses. Like the inept doctor who treats the symptoms rather than the disease, it is neglecting the real cause of the problem – large numbers of people scattered throughout the southeast who need to travel to other places in the southeast. The Courier Mail 12-3-2007
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From this passage we can reconstruct a debate in which the advocates of putting more buses on the road to solve southeast Queensland’s transport problem apply a causal argumentation scheme: buses will solve the transport problem because buses reduce the number of cars on the road and the great number of cars is the cause of the transport problem. The writer of the letter to the editor, who acts as antagonist against this argument, in addition to questioning whether buses will actually reduce the number of cars on the road, attacks the causal relationship posited by the protagonist between the number of cars on the road and Queensland’s transport problem, by dissociating between real cause and mere symptoms. The dialectical result of an attack on the relationship between standpoint and argument posited by the protagonist is that the standpoint of the protagonist no longer stands supported. The dissociation contributes to this effect in a specific way: it provides an alternative interpretation of the relationship posited by the protagonist by pointing out that this relationship is only apparent and not real. Thus the relevancy of the argument to the standpoint is put into question. The rhetorical effect of an attack by dissociation on the central term of the argument scheme that establishes the relationship between standpoint and argument is that it strikes at the heart of that relationship: the connection attempted by the protagonist is severed by exposing it as merely apparent. Doing this by means of dissociation is a far stronger move than the straightforward dis-association that would be established by simply contending that the connection does not hold: the dissociation provides an alternative possibility, suggesting, for instance, as in the case of the above example, that there is a real cause, one that the protagonist mistakenly neglected. In this way, the antagonist does no longer seem to need to argue for his contention that the connection does not hold. In addition, he can create a starting point that is favorable to his own position (which, in this example, is that it is not buses, but an integrated transport system, including trains, that would do the job).
2.3.2 Second critical question With the second critical question the relationship that is expressed in the argument scheme is attacked by showing that the argument leads to a different consequence, is comparable with something else, or is symptomatic for something else than what is postulated in the relationship. An example of the use of dissociation in such an attack is given in the following conversation: (5) A: he is a good manager B: well, he certainly couldn’t prevent that subsidy cut-off A: yes, he isn’t a good crisis manager, but as a general manager he’s just fine
Strategic maneuvering with dissociation
B applies the symptomatic relationship that not being able to prevent a subsidy cut-off is a sign of not being a good manager. A attacks that connection by dissociating between general (true) management and crisis management, implicitly contending that not being able to prevent a subsidy cut-off is not a sign of not being a good manager, but of something different, namely, of not being a good crisis manager. The dialectical result of an attack on the second term of the relationship by pointing out that the argument does not support the standpoint that has been put forward, but another one, is that the standpoint of the protagonist does no longer stand supported. The dissociation contributes to this effect in a specific way: it provides an alternative interpretation of the second term of the relationship. The rhetorical effect of an attack on the second term of the relationship through dissociation is that the antagonist suggests that the postulated conclusion only holds for a trivial aspect, but that it does not apply to the heart of the matter. By providing an alternative conclusion (the trivial one), he leaves no longer open the question whether the argument is relevant for the standpoint, but, ‘proves’ that it is not, while doing away with the need for any further argument. As a result, the antagonist can evade a conclusion that he would be committed to on the basis of his acceptance of the argument and of the argument scheme. In the example above, the antagonist, by contending that from the fact that someone who can’t prevent a subsidy cut-off one can merely deduce that this person is not a good crisis manager, not that he is not a good manager, can escape the conclusion that he would have to subscribe to given his acceptance of the argument of the protagonist and the symptomatic argument scheme that the protagonist applies, and he does so without running the risk of being accused of inconsistency. In addition, by dismissing the conclusion that B draws, A gives an indirect defense of his own standpoint, while shifting away the attention of the audience from the independent defense of which that standpoint stands in need.
2.3.3 Third critical question With the third critical question the relationship that is expressed in the argument scheme is attacked by showing that it is not the argument given, but something else (which happens not to be the case) that leads to the postulated consequence, is comparable to the postulated object for comparison, or has the postulated characteristic. An example of the use of dissociation in this kind of attack is the following fragment from a television debate in which movie producer Matthijs van Heijningen defends the claim that he has not lost his passion:
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(6) dJ: I think that Matthijs’s flame has subsided (…) vH: well [Follows mention of four movies he is producing at that moment – MAvR]…. no certainly not, no no just just dJ: yes but I have the feeling that Matthijs does this because he is a producer and is supposed to do something again, not because he really wants to do that specific production
Van Heijningen makes use of a symptomatic argument scheme: producing a lot of movies points to passion. De Jong attacks the first member of the relationship that the scheme expresses by dissociating between movies that are produced because the producer really wants to, and movies that are produced because the producer has to. Only producing the first type shows that the producer has not lost his passion. De Jong does not contest that van Heijningen is producing four movies (in this sense he does not contest the tenability of the starting point), but he does contest that van Heijningen produces the kind of movies that enables the application of the symptomatic relationship. The dialectical result of an attack on the first term of the relationship, pointing out that it is not what the argument states that supports the standpoint that has been put forward, but something else, is that the standpoint of the protagonist does no longer stand supported. Again, the dissociation contributes to this effect in a specific way: the dissociation provides an alternative interpretation of the first term, which opens the way for the antagonist to point to an exception to the rule that is inherent in the relationship that the protagonist postulates, and to contend that the starting point of the protagonist does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that he defends. The rhetorical effect of an attack on the first term of the relationship through dissociation is that the antagonist can escape a conclusion that he would be committed to on the basis of his acceptance of the argument and of the argument scheme. In the example above, de Jong cannot deny that van Heijningen produces a lot of movies, and that on the basis of the symptomatic argument scheme that van Heijningen applies, the conclusion that the latter has not lost his passion is inescapable, but by dissociating between making movies in a trivial sense, because you have to make them, and making movies in the sense that matters, because you want to make them, de Jong splits off a kind of movie production that does not signal passion, and is able to escape the conclusion he is committed to without running the risk of being accused of inconsistency. In this case, as in the previous one, in addition he gives an indirect defense of his own standpoint by dismissing the standpoint of the opponent, thus shifting the attention of the audience away from the need to defend his own one independently.
Strategic maneuvering with dissociation
2.4 Concluding stage In the concluding stage, protagonist and antagonist jointly establish the outcome of the defense of the standpoint of the protagonist in the preceding stage. Both participants can use dissociation in their formulation of the standpoint which they conclude is tenable or, as the case may be, should be retracted. The specific dialectical contribution of dissociation in this stage is that it enables the participants to give a more precise interpretation of the standpoint which the participants decide has or has not proved tenable in view of the criticism brought forward against it. An example can be found in the concluding stage of a discussion in the British TV show Kilroy between a woman who has been swindled by a con man and members of the public, with regard to the question whether the woman has not her own greed to blame for her losses.6 After first denying it, in the end Beth admits to her greed: (7)
Lyn: [easy money [so it’s gree::d] Beth: [I’ll admit, -] Lyn: it’s a form of greed Beth: yeah but I’m not a greedy person
Immediately after her opponent has reaffirmed Beth’s admission that she was led by greed, Beth makes a dissociation between her deeds and her person, thereby limiting the scope of the conclusion. The rhetorical effect of dissociation in the concluding stage is that the protagonist or antagonist can choose the interpretation of the conclusion that suits him best, without running the risk of being accused of shirking the commitments that he took upon himself in the earlier stages of the discussion. Also, in this way, the speaker can evade unwelcome consequences of the conclusion that has been reached. Even though Beth in the end retracts her standpoint that she was not driven by greed in her dealings with the conman and accepts the standpoint that she was, through her dissociation between deeds and person she can escape the unfavorable implication that she is a greedy person.
3.
Between dialectical reasonableness and rhetorical effectiveness
As I have shown in the above, dissociation can be used in a number of dialectical moves, in various places in the various stages of a critical discussion. It can be used in bringing forward standpoints, arguments and conclusions, and it can be used to attack standpoints, arguments, and argument schemes. Dissociation can, in principle, enhance the dialectical reasonableness of these tasks because
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the usage declaratives that it involves in principle have a clarifying function. They may help to give a more precise interpretation of statements and to draw a finer line between what is and what is not the case. At the same time, dissociation fulfills the dialectical tasks of the moves in which it occurs in particular ways, that open up rhetorical possibilities. The specific characteristics of dissociation, providing alternative interpretations of a term and making a distinction between central and peripheral aspects of a notion, are relevant here. By virtue of these characteristics, dissociation may help protagonists to choose those standpoints and starting points that are easiest to defend and most persuasive, and it may help antagonists to do away as quickly and firmly as possible with the standpoints and arguments of the protagonist, and it may help both to draw the conclusions that are the most favorable as possible to their own position. In addition, it allows them to do so, even when earlier they have committed themselves to positions or starting points that imply positions that are radically different from the ones they ultimately are willing to take, without seeming inconsistent. The explorations in this paper have some implications, I think, for the wider project on strategic maneuvering. Firstly, if we want to understand the possibilities that a particular argumentative technique offers for strategic maneuvering between the two poles of dialectical reasonableness and rhetorical effectiveness, we cannot just look at the technique in isolation or in the abstract; we need to take into account the place in the full discussion context in which the technique is used. Secondly, in order to establish these possibilities, we need to take into consideration not only the dialectical tasks which the technique is supposed to perform, but we also have to look at the precise ways in which the technique performs these tasks. The particular contribution the technique makes to performing these tasks opens up its specific potential for engendering rhetorical gain.
References 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. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Grootendorst, R. (1992). Argumentation, Communication, and Fallacies. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Grootendorst, R. (2004). A Systematic Theory of Argumentation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (1997). Rhetorical Rationales for Dialectical Moves. In J. F. Klumpp (Ed.), Argument in a Time of Change: Definitions, Frameworks, and Critiques (pp. 51–56). Annandale, VA, NCA.
Strategic maneuvering with dissociation
Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2002). Strategic Maneuvering: 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 Publishers. Perelman, Ch., & Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1969). The New Rhetoric. A Treatise on Argumentation. Notre Dame/London: University of Notre Dame Press. Rees, M. A. van (2005). Dissociation: a Dialogue Technique. Studies in Communication Sciences. Special Issue Argumentation in Dialogic Interaction, 35–49. Thornborrow, J. (2007). Narrative, opinion and situated argument in talk show discourse. Journal of Pragmatics, 39(8), 1436–1453. Zarefsky, D. (1997). Definitions. In J. F. Klumpp (Ed.), Argument in a Time of Change: Definitions, Frameworks, and Critiques (pp. 1–11). Annandale, VA: NCA. Zarefsky, D. (2004). Presidential Rhetoric and the Power of Definition. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 34(3), 607–619. Zarefsky, D., Miller-Tutzauer, C., & Tutzauer, F. E. (1984). Reagan’s Safety Net for the Truly Needy: the Rhetorical Uses of Definition, Central States Speech Journal, 35, 113–119.
Notes 1. Strictly speaking, one cannot speak here of protagonist and antagonist, since in the confrontation stage these roles have not yet been distributed. But since the discussant who brings forward a standpoint in practice usually is the one who takes on the defense and the one who brings forward doubt the one who fulfils the attacking role, for briefness’s sake, I use these terms in this context, too. 2. This section is concerned with dissociation occurring in a standpoint in the confrontation stage of the main discussion, not with a standpoint consisting of a proposal for dissociation. In the first move of the confrontation stage, dissociation takes the shape of a single assertion, +/p[t1]; dissociation in the form of a complex assertion, +/p[t1] . –/p[t2], I reconstruct as belonging to the second move. 3. These dialectical and rhetorical effects also apply in cases where the opposing position is implicit, for example in the case of a terminally ill Dutch Reformed elderly lady who pleaded with her daughter for ending her suffering by the argument ‘I am not asking for euthanasia, I only want a little injection to help me die’. Implicitly she is opposing the argument (generated by her religious conscience and projected onto her daughter) that an intervention is not allowed, because that would be euthanasia, and that is unallowable. 4. In the argumentation stage, also, the protagonist can respond to criticism against his arguments. This reaction always involves bringing forward additional arguments to replace, support, or complement the original ones. For understanding the use of dissociation in these additional arguments, based on additional starting points, the discussion of the use of dissociation in starting points, in the previous section, is relevant. 5. In itself, the breaking of an associative link need not be an operation of dissociation. That is only the case when the attack takes the shape of a distinction between the real and the apparent aspects of the connection. 6. The example is quoted from Thornborrow (2007).
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Constrained maneuvering Rhetoric as a rational enterprise Christopher W. Tindale
1.
Maneuvering strategically for strategic maneuvering
All theories of argumentation, and particularly those that are normative in force, stress the underlying reasonableness of the activity and ways in which this should be achieved and maintained. But there is also a practical recognition that arguers have more in mind, even where they are concerned to maintain reasonableness. They may, for example, want to maintain that reasonableness on their own terms and achieve outcomes that are favourable to their own interests, and they will measure success in this way. In recognition of this, the development of the strategic maneuvering project is a welcome initiative that should bring argumentation theorists to take more seriously the rhetorical dimensions of argumentation. In what follows, I consider closely some of the central features of the strategic maneuvering project in relation to my own recent attempts to work with a rhetorical model of argumentation (Tindale, 2004; 1999). I begin by outlining my own understanding of that project and its essential features by considering a brief case study where arguers attempt to persuade a community to accept their position. The case involves a pair of argumentation theorists, Frans van Eemeren and Peter Houtlosser, aware of exactly that tension I have just presented and concerned to persuade the larger body of argumentation theorists that a rhetorical perspective can have value and that it can be captured in a series of features tied to the various stages of argumentation under the umbrella term “strategic maneuvering.” Of course, that larger body of argumentation theorists constitutes a particularly diverse composite audience, some of whom will take little persuading of rhetoric’s role since it has been part of the approach they have taken. Their concern may be the specific role that rhetoric should play. Those coming out of the perspective grounded by the work of Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca are obvious examples. But others will not be so easily persuaded since the grounds of their
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perspective have been free from rhetoric and may even have been established in contrast to it. Those theorists working in the pragma-dialectical perspective as it was initially conceived are obvious examples here. The proponents of the new initiative have their work cut out for them.
A case study
We see certain moves at the confrontation stage, where the nature of the dispute is addressed. The decision of how to approach the topic is going to be important, and it is done by stressing how strategic maneuvering strengthens and completes the pragma-dialectical account. [U]ntil recently, pragma-dialectical analysis tended to concentrate on reconstructing primarily the dialectical aspects of argumentative discourse. It is clear, however, that the analysis and its justification can be considerably strengthened by a better understanding of the strategic rationale behind the moves that are made in the discourse. For this purpose, it is indispensable to incorporate a rhetorical dimension into the reconstruction of the discourse. (van Eemeren & Houtlosser 1999a, 164)
At the confrontation stage, then, the traditional tension between dialectic and rhetoric is down-played and the relation presented as complementary and useful. This will quell the audience (or at least the potentially antagonistic part of the wider audience). But they will still demand more, expecting to see a relationship between the two perspectives that fits established principles that are shared and that explains the new roles. Thus, audience demand is met by explicitly avoiding a contradiction1 and stressing the supplementary nature of the new rhetorical influence, and by explaining how the new venture fits into the traditional division between dialectic and rhetoric (van Eemeren & Houtlosser, 1999c, 482–3). There is no question about the appropriate relationship here – rhetoric is the handmaid of dialectic, and rhetorical moves operate within a dialectical framework (1999c, 493). This contrasts markedly, as they note, with rhetorical theorists Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, who bring elements of dialectic into rhetoric (van Eemeren & Houtlosser 1999a, 165). This preferred relationship represents a natural extension of the commitments already made in pragma-dialectics. There is also argumentation that builds on an understanding already alive in the wider audience: Dialectic, we are reminded, deals with general and abstract questions, while rhetoric concerns itself with specific cases (van Eemeren & Houtlosser 2000a) and with the contextual adjustments required to convince specific people (van Eemeren & Houtlosser 2002b, 15). It seems natural, then, that the specific should be embedded in the general. Furthermore, theoreticians have characterized rhetoric’s norm as that of effectiveness, while dialectic embraces
Constrained maneuvering
the idea of reasonableness. Although van Eemeren and Houtlosser insist there is no incompatibility between these norms (2002b, 15), they do not resist this traditional characterization of rhetoric and so, again, it seems natural to ground effectiveness in reasonableness: “effective persuasion must be disciplined by dialectical rationality” (2000b, 297). It is at the opening stage, I think, that the authors of the project must supply specific criteria or tools to carry the account, and this requirement is met by an important triad of features that, while different in several ways, serve to connect with the audience of the wider use of rhetoric by recalling a similar triad in Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, for example, with echoes back to the Rhetorica ad Herennium. The first such dimension involves the selection of topics from those available. Van Eemeren and Houtlosser call this the topical potential of each discussion stage. That is, arguers will select materials from those available according to what they believe best advances their interests. At the confrontation stage, the speaker or writer will select or exclude in an attempt to dictate how the confrontation is defined. In a dispute over the place of rhetoric in argumentation, for example, the key idea might be defined in terms of strengthening an established model of argumentation. At the opening stage, participants attempt to create the most advantageous starting point. This may be done by establishing agreements over the traditional roles of dialectic and rhetoric and winning concessions about how these might now be related. At the argumentation stage, the best “status topes” will be selected from those appropriate for the type of standpoint at issue. And at the concluding stage, attention will be directed to achieving the best outcome for a party by, for example, pointing to consequences (1999a, 166), or indicating that the new model is better equipped to handle conventionalized types of argumentative activity, like negotiation (van Eemeren and Houtlosser, 2005). The second dimension involves adapting to audience (auditorial) demands. In general, this will amount to creating “empathy or ‘communion’ between the arguer and his audience” (van Eemeren & Houtlosser 2000b, 298). But this adaptation works in specific ways at each stage, depending on the issue and the nature of the audience involved. Again, in advocating for the role of the rhetorical in argumentation, the arguers would agree with the audience’s potential concerns, stress the benign role of rhetoric and address the audience’s expectations to have this influence controlled by not alternating significantly the underlying dialectical perspective. The third dimension involves exploiting the presentational devices appropriate at each stage. Here, rhetorical figures are used to impress moves upon the mind and create ‘presence’. At the opening stage, the rhetorical ploys adopted by arguers may be effectively presented by adopting the metaphor of maneuvers, of moving around obstacles towards a goal.
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These three dimensions or features are important in themselves for setting the terms of the account and defining how rhetoric can be brought into argumentation. But it still must be brought in with a mind to the reasonableness of the whole enterprise. Here I think we see aspects of the argumentation stage of the “dispute,” where a case must be made for the rationality of the account. A key criterion for assessing whether a rhetorical strategy is “being followed” (1999a, 166; 1999b, 170) in any stage is that of convergence: the selection of materials, the adaptation to audience, and the use of rhetorical devices must all converge. Further details show convergence to be a criterion of (reasonable) success. As is observed, “Strategic maneuvering works best when the rhetorical influences brought to bear at each of the three levels are made to converge” [italics added] (2000a). Indeed, the argumentation for recognizing and adopting strategic maneuvering has fused the three dimensions of topic selection, audience adaptation, and device presentation in the tradition of a valued approach to argumentation, that of pragma-dialectics. In doing so, the argumentation has more than just strategically maneuvered, it has “displayed a genuine rhetorical strategy” (2000a). In the same paper, the authors speak of a rhetorical strategy being “optimally successful” when such a fusion of influences occurs. We might further ponder the nature of this success. In rhetoric, it is usually tied in some way to effectiveness of persuasion, according to van Eemeren and Houtlosser’s own understanding. But success in terms that they have now set out may mean no more than being able to match one’s rhetorical interests with one’s dialectical obligations through strategies that exploit (in a neutral sense) the opportunities in an argumentative situation. More clearly identified is a negative requirement governing appropriate strategies. Being persuasive would not be sufficient to count rhetorical strategies acceptable if they are not also reasonable (2000b, 297). And the key way in which they must meet this condition further ties them into the program of pragma-dialectical assessments, thus further satisfying audience demand: it is by avoiding fallaciousness (1999c, 485). Fallacies in pragma-dialectics involve violations of one or more rules that govern critical discussions. In the view of van Eemeren and Houtlosser, it is “possible to identify specific ‘types’ or ‘categories’ of strategic maneuvering that can be pinned down as fallacious for their correspondence with a particular type of rule violation in a specific discussion stage” (2001, 24). The requirement of reasonableness represented by the rules for discussion serves as a check on the arguer simply having her or his way. Such would occur should the arguer’s commitment to proceeding reasonably be overruled by the aim of persuasion (in other words, when the correct relationship between the dialectical and the rhetorical is inverted). When this happens, van Eemeren and Houtlosser say that the strategic maneuvering
Constrained maneuvering
has been “derailed,” and hence a fallacy committed. Clearly, this is a point they wish to fix in the minds of the audiences, because they adopt a particularly vivid presentational device to present it: “All derailments of strategic maneuvering are fallacious, and all fallacies can be regarded as derailments of strategic maneuvering” (2001, 23). It is an additional merit of this new proposal, one that would be a fitting inclusion in the argumentation stage where important consequences and advantages can be demonstrated, that emphasizing strategic maneuvering now makes it possible to explain the relationship between fallacies and their positive counterparts and to further explain why fallacies appear so persuasive (van Eemeren and Houtlosser, 2004: 3).
1.1
Assumptions in strategic maneuvering
I do not belong to that portion of the audience of argumentation theorists who needed to be persuaded of the value of incorporating rhetoric in argumentation. Any model of argumentation that looks to focus on the rhetorical cannot but be helped by components of van Eemeren and Houtlosser’s work. The choices speakers and writers make in selecting the terms and structures of their statements, for example, are aimed at giving their ideas presence. Statements are designed to capture the attention of the audience so that specific ideas stand out in their minds. Even the first dimension of selecting issues has this intent (1999b, 168). But it is with the use of rhetorical figures as presentational devices that this becomes most apparent, as they “make things present to the mind” (1999a, 166; 1999c : 485). I see this is an important echo and acknowledgment of Perelman and OlbrechtsTyteca’s stress on the way rhetorical figures attract attention in argumentation (1969, 168). On the other hand, in my own work I have focused more on the role played by the audience in argumentation than on maneuvering strategies adopted by arguers. In this regard, there are several connected assumptions prevalent in the strategic maneuvering project that sets the approach apart from the direction that my work has taken These involve the subsidiary role strategic maneuvering gives to rhetoric in relation to dialectic and the related importance the project gives to the arguers over audiences. Arguers, we are told, are not only interested in resolving a difference of opinion; they design their contributions in order to resolve disputes in their own favour. It is this rational self-interest that turns them to rhetoric. It had been the earlier failure to pay attention to the “purposes of arguers” (van Eemeren & Houtlosser, 2004: 2) that had been seen as a lack in the pragma-dialectical project. But the reason rhetoric is crucial to argumentation in many other models is because argumentation is audience-oriented. In dialectical
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exchanges between participants in a dispute we can monitor the strategies each uses to advance her or his interests. But in argumentation of the monological variety, in which the critical discussion must be imagined and the role of one party “activated,” such primary attention to the arguer seems imbalanced. Greater attention to notions of audience may well modify the way we think about strategic maneuvering in argumentation. This is what I will suggest in what follows.2 Furthermore, in proceeding to explain some of the alternative ways in which strategies of rhetoric can be incorporated in argumentation, I will consider another assumption that attends the project, namely that rhetoric itself is not sufficiently rational but needs dialectic to “discipline” it.
2.
Rhetorical argumentation as a co-operative venture: Multiple maneuvering rhetoric and dialectic
At the core of any account of argumentation that gives prominence to rhetoric is a fundamental accommodation of audience. This certainly marks rhetorical argumentation off from the logical. The traditional logical approach has been to view argumentation as something detached from its contexts; the focus is on the production, nature, analysis and evaluation of arguments per se. Perelman (1989: 246) tells us, for example, that Henry Johnstone Jr. as late as 1971 denied that audience played any role whatsoever in argumentation generally, and he (Perelman) distinguished himself from a similar innovator like Toulmin because the latter ignored the role of audience (250). Even those of us who are at home in informal logic come from that shared background of the tradition such that where we do give attention to rhetoric (and not all do), there has been a tendency to “rediscover” it from the perspective of that tradition and on logical terms. That is, the assumptions of the logical tradition have influenced that rediscovery. So rhetoric is brought back late to a venture like informal logic that is already active and partly development. We have the study of arguments essentially viewed as products and now we come to consider a rhetorical feature like audience. Thus, we view the audience in light of and with respect to argument-products that already exist. But we have it the wrong way round: the audience underlies those products; it was partly responsible for them and they need to be extracted (if they need to be extracted) on those terms.3 In terms of the rhetoric/dialectic divide, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca give this appreciation as a key reason why they chose to call their theory of argumentation rhetorical rather than dialectical: “it is in terms of an audience that an argumentation develops” (1969: 5). As if to clarify this idea, they later note that rhetoric is to be valued over dialectic because it gives primacy to the influence that a
Constrained maneuvering
speech (spoken or written) has on the entire personality of the hearers in the way that it can move us to action. This is one of the influences that led me to give such prominence to audience considerations in my own approach to argumentation (2004, 1999), although there is, at least on this point, something more to the perspective that I try to capture. As we know, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca define the audience of an argumentation as “those to whom it is addressed” (7).4 That is, they are interested in the audience that a speaker intends. It is surprising that a philosopher of Perelman’s background would pass over without comment the problems inherent in this idea. Searching for the “intended” audience leaves us divining the intentions of arguers often when their minds are no longer accessible to us. Of course, it is part of the account that we are judging adherence of ideas, and so some sense of the audience for which the ideas were intended needs to be garnered. Still, we want also to work in argumentation with actual audiences, those who are addressed, whether intended or not. Plato addresses us now, although he could not have imagined us with our backgrounds, interests and beliefs. And we feel no compunctions in evaluating Plato’s arguments, judging their strength in part on whether or not people still adhere to the ideas involved. So we need to be interested in actual as well as intended audiences. In fact, if we shift the focus from the arguer/speaker to the audience we can consider who is addressed by argumentation. This idea is already present in Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s work because they are interested in how hearers experience argumentation. But it is an idea that deserves development. I have emphasized the focus on experience in a somewhat different appreciation of audience. It seems a fundamental feature of our social beings that we are “in audience.”5 What this means is that we always have the standpoint of an audience, of what the experience of an audience feels like; this is our primary relationship to argumentation, our entry into it. Individually, and in the groups to which we belong or to which speakers assume we belong, we have this potential. We are constantly open to being addressed. We are able to learn to be arguers, to engage in argumentation from this perspective, because we have first been audiences, and engaged from that perspective. Thus, audience as a way of being is fundamental to argumentation as a social phenomenon. One idea that captures something of this experience is “addressivity”. As the notion arises in the work of Bakhtin, (1986; 1981) it refers to the ways in which words used in utterances, in their very structure, both address and anticipate a response. Utterances are not isolated components of discourse, woven together to form a coherent whole; they are essentially dialogical in nature, the utterance captures both the utterer and the audience insofar as the audience’s expectations, interpretation and response condition the development of the utterance and
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e nsuing speech. Transferring this understanding of utterance to the genre of argumentation, we must see this dialogical character fixing the audience as a primary contributory source of the argumentation. The arguer/audience imbalance that favours the arguer in so many ways (as the controller of intentions; as the active participant to the audience’s passivity) is shown for what it is: misconceived and incorrect. Understanding any argumentation, including the intentions involved, must begin as much with the audience as the arguer. Ways of viewing this active involvement of those addressed is captured in some of the various attempts at redressing the conception of rhetoric as exploitative, where the interest and desires of one party are imposed on another, and any means can be used to create a “successful” outcome. Foss and Griffin (1995), for example, call this traditional view “Conquest” rhetoric.6 In contrast, they advocate a view of rhetoric they describe as “Invitational.” Openness characterizes this approach. It protects the integrity of the other person by creating space for growth and change through self-persuasion, and it has a co-operative focus. It would also seem to counter the generalized belief that all arguers are interested in resolving a dispute in ways that favour their own interests, unless we read this in a way that is essentially trivial (where even the behaviour of a Mother Teresa is self-interested because she would not help others if it did not first and foremost further her own satisfaction). While Foss and Griffin draw largely from feminist theory in developing their account, I have argued that this model of rhetoric has not been missing from the tradition as a whole, and is even suggested in places where it is least expected, like the reasoning of the sophists (Tindale, 2004: 50–55). In situations where no argument is prima facie strong or weak, several sophists invited audiences to experience the situation for themselves and judge which of various possibilities was most likely according to their (the audience members’) experience. Given that the audience was not present when events took place, a sophist like Antiphon in his court pieces is effectively asking what other primary resource a jury audience would have than their own experience of what is likely, and so if they are to be persuaded it is by their own lights. Rhetoric acts on the listener and helps modify what appears to be the case. And once this view of rhetorical argumentation appears through the sophists it does not disappear in subsequent accounts. It is there, arguably, in the Dialogues of Plato, expressed through a Socratic rhetoric that will not impose a view on his interlocutors, but strives to bring them to a point where they see themselves reflected in the statements they put forward; where they are invited to take possession of those statements, follow them to their consequences (likely, contradictions) and be persuaded (or not) by the knowledge that ensues. And an invitational rhetoric is also evident in Aristotle’s Rhetoric, in the rhetorical enthymeme that, unlike the syllogism, is determined by the audience, by what they understand (Kennedy 1991: 42). Such enthymemes
Constrained maneuvering
are “embedded in the possibilities that interest us” (McCabe, 1994: 55) and are constructed, presented and effective on those terms. What is common to these approaches to rhetoric in argument is the focus laid on the audience’s perspective, on how the argumentation appears to them, and on how they experience it. Also of relevance here is Jeanne Fahnestock’s (1999) work on rhetorical figures in science. Her study captures an appreciation of the enthymeme just mentioned insofar as she sees rhetorical figures invoking the collaboration of audiences. Patterns of discourse encourage an audience’s participation by virtue of their form. “All derailments of strategic maneuvering are fallacious, and all fallacies can be regarded as derailments of strategic maneuvering” has a predictive pattern to it such that an active audience is invited to follow the pattern. Fahnestock suggests that this figure (the antimetabole) may be the most predictive because it is the easiest to complete following its first clause (1999: 124). The simplicity of its pattern makes it easy to recognize and complete, and the audience can complete it wherever it is left partially stated. On the other hand, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca provide a warning of the dangers involved when such moves are too overt. Then, they suggest, the arguer is open to a charge of “device,” as damaging in rhetorical terms as a charge of “fallacy” in logical terms. The use of rhetoric in argumentation, as we appreciate, has always been vulnerable to disqualification when its strategies appear unnatural, artificial, and designed only as a contrived means to an end. When so viewed, the strategy appears as a device only (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969: 450). “How can one react against the branding of a discourse as a device, or better still, how can one prevent it?” (453). Among the more useful answers they provide to this question is one drawn from Pascal – that people are better persuaded by reasons which they have discovered for themselves. In other words, through the kind of self-persuasion discussed above.
2.1 The audience in strategic maneuvering Given that ‘audience demand’ seems to play the kind of central role in strategic maneuvering that ‘communion’ does in the New Rhetoric, it is a concern that it appears to view the audience so rigidly from the arguer’s perspective, as those to be persuaded. Naturally, the reality of the situation favours the arguer’s perspective, since that is the one we often take and the interests of which may dominate. But there is a danger here of some circularity. If the strategies are designed to encourage an outcome in which the arguer’s interests are promoted, the strategies themselves might be affected with a bias that illegitimately creates that outcome.7 Furthermore, if we stay with the one side of the perspective, we may not recover all
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of the other side, the audience’s, in particular the dynamic nature of the rhetorical audience. A review of how audience demand is imagined may help to emphasize these things and suggest the contrast with what I have been outlining. “For optimal rhetorical result, the moves must in each stage of the discourse also be adapted to audience demand in such a way that they comply with the listeners’ or readership’s good sense and preferences” (van Eemeren and Houtlosser, 1999c: 484–85). The attempt here is to create a common ground, or communion with the audience. Widely shared value judgments might be used at the confrontation stage, or accepted argumentative principles used as basic premises in the argumentation stage. Again, we can imagine the use of eunoia, or goodwill being expressed to the audience through generous gestures or praise of some sort. That such efforts continue throughout the stages of the discourse indicates the enduring concern that the audience represents. But the audience in strategic maneuvering is not considered a co-developer of the argumentation in the ways I have been suggesting. Yet, if the ground is ‘common’, the arguer and audience already share something that binds them, they belong together as an audience at a level prior to the particular situation which now provides the dispute. If widelyshared value judgments or widely-shared argumentative principles are at stake, then these things are being lifted up into the argumentative situation from an underlying shared fund of involvement. The arguer and audience belong together in what I would consider a rhetorical dimension of involvement that precedes any particular argumentative situation and makes that situation possible. In “audience demand,” then, the emphasis might well be placed on the demand. The audience has a voice and the arguer hears that (active) voice because he or she is part of that audience.8 Furthermore, the case study of William the Silent (van Eemeren & Houtlosser, 1999b) would seem to illustrate our ability to evaluate historical texts (where we do not have immediate relations with the audience) because we share the perspective of being in audience. There we learn that the “attitude assumed by the author seems to a large extent to depend on his addressee” (169, my emphasis), and so it is important to appreciate that the text is addressed to a composite audience and aspects of the argumentation must be understood from the perspective of sub-groups within that audience. To perform this act of understanding, the evaluator must at some level be the audience for that text, take on the perspective of the readership in an active way, and it is our nature as audience that allows this. Less directly, but implicitly, the audience is similarly important for the other two features in strategic maneuvering, topical potential and presentational device, since the topics to be chosen and the most effective devices for presentation are both decided with the audience in mind. One can see just by reviewing the text, for example, what presentational devices William the Silent used to address his
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multiple audiences. But one has to view things from the perspectives within that audience to judge how and why these particular devices were chosen, what they tell us about the author’s understanding of his audience and the ways that audience acted upon him to suggest to him that these particular devices would be effective. So while the primary motivation behind strategic maneuvering seems the interests of the arguers, as important in the success of strategic maneuvering is the interests of the audience. And the maneuvering that ensues is, for that reason, constrained by the audience.
3.
The rational core of rhetoric: “[Rhetoric] is the application of proof to people”9
In the previous section, I have stressed the fundamental role of the audience and argued for a more balanced view of the arguer/audience relationship that recognizes the active contributions of the audience. But nothing here explicitly challenges the claim that rhetoric needs dialectic to provide reasonableness because it cannot be reasonable on its own terms. Again, phrasing the claim in this way is not entirely fair. Critics do allow an intersubjective reasonableness prevalent in rhetoric and judge this as “one of the pillars of the critical reasonableness conception characteristic of dialectic” (van Eemeren and Houtlosser 2000a). At the same time, though, this is not the kind of objective reasonableness that we achieve by demanding that argumentation comply with a set of dialectical rules. Traditionally,10 there has been a strong valuing of both dialectical and rhetorical arguments. But although they are at root essentially similar, both being used to bring about assent and each dependent on a kind of common opinion, rhetorical arguments, unlike their dialectical counterparts, are deemed only to bring people to hold beliefs for reasons which fail to survive further scrutiny. They may garner “surface” acceptance but not enduring adherence. So the position is that dialectic (through its rules and procedures) lifts rhetoric out of it specificity, where the opportunities of a particular situation have been exploited, and gives it an objective rationality it cannot have on its own terms. Contrary to a view that continues to be active as least within informal logic (Johnson, 2000: 163), that rhetoric is not interested in a vibrant sense of rationality, we do not have to detach the Aristotelian view of successful persuasion and its modern echoes from an ideal of reasonableness.11 What we must consider carefully is what should be understood by “effectiveness”. In Perelman and OlbrechtsTyteca’s terms, effectiveness is measured by the adherence of an audience to a claim. But, again, how “adherence” should be understood needs to be investigated. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca are less than perspicuous here, although what
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does seem apparent is that they are advocating much more than a mere “surface” acceptance. Certainly, they are speaking of types of agreement. Those agreements regarding facts are a type common to several people and which requires no further strengthening (Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969: 67). Thus, we can take such agreements as basic premises in argumentation and build on them. This is crucial, argumentation can achieve adherence because it builds on adherence; it is a movement from and toward adherences. But those towards which argumentation moves need to be strengthened by being rooted in the lives of the audience. We can perhaps see this in the discussion of convincing and persuading. Here as is often the case, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s analysis involves a reconciliation of traditional oppositions. We might view persuasion in opposition to convincing, and as a lesser cousin to it. Traditionally, conviction is grounded in truth and persuasion in opinion. But Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca reverse this opposition and then assimilate it at a deeper level. It is not enough to be convinced, one must also be moved to action (since this is the domain of argumentation for them) and this involves being persuaded at a deeper level (26). As soon as we admit other means of proof, argumentation assumes a significance beyond mere subjective belief (hence, challenging the objective/subjective opposition). Adherence connects thought to action and bridges the divide between what is the case for me and what ought to be the case for others. I adhere to an action because it is reasonable for anyone in my situation to do so. What makes these movements from adherence to adherence rational?12 I have laid stress on several features that address this question, I have space to say something about two of them here: the role of figures and the role of a further audience, the universal audience. Figures share many of the features of what we traditionally call arguments (as products): they are regularized patterns, or codified structures, that transfer acceptability from premises to conclusions. The similarities between arguments and figures have been well presented by Olivier Reboul (1989) and Fahnestock (1999). Reboul shows how an argument “possesses the same status of imprecision, intersubjectivity and polemic” (181) as a figure. Fahnestock takes us much further in laying bare the cognitive heart of figuration and identifies within key figures crucial features of rhetorical argument like collaboration and experience. As part of the latter, she shows how readily figures with their atypical employments of language capture the movements that take place within discourses. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca reinforce a further important feature: arguments aim at a change of perspective, whatever this might involve. As they explain matters, a figure can be argumentative or not, depending on the case in question, so a figure functions as an argument when it meets certain conditions.13 My own account adopts the following conditions, the first of which is drawn from
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erelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca: A figure serves as an argument when (i) it has a P recognized structure (is codified); (ii) its inner activity promotes the movement from premises to a conclusion; (iii) it has one of the goals of argumentation.14 There is, then, a “logic” to a figure that renders its strategic use reasonable, a reasonableness that transfers to the adherence. And its strategic use is in relation to the goals of the argumentation, seen beyond the achievement of mere adherence in the attempts to achieve joint understanding, to open up perspectives, to explore issues and develop inquiries and, indeed, to resolve disputes and persuade. When we look at arguments from a rhetorical, rather than a dialectical or logical, point of view, certain features become more important to us, and we ask questions that would not be asked, say, from a logical perspective: questions like “How is this discourse experienced?” “How does it invite collaboration?” In the case of a figure like the praeteritio, then, we can set out both identifying features (as we would with an argument scheme) and critical questions to decide whether it has been appropriately used: An arguer, a, draws attention to x while professing to avoid it. The audience is invited (implicitly) to construct x for themselves. x, so constructed, increases the plausibility of a’s position.
And the critical questions that would be appropriate for exploring any argumentative use of a praeteritio: Is x sufficiently suggested that the audience in question would be likely to see it? Are sufficient details provided for the construction of x by the audience? Does plausibility transfer from x to a’s position?
Such tools would allow us to evaluate cases where a praeteritio has been used, like that in the William of Silent example, and decide if its use is reasonable.15 The universal audience is a much more contentious device to resurrect, its history being fraught with misunderstandings, and I turn to it with some caution. But I have made some efforts to revitalize this concept and present it as a viable tool in the evaluation of argumentation. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca introduce the universal audience as one of the audiences that have a normative role when we judge whether an argument is convincing (1969: 30). In fact, its role for particular audiences seems limited and indistinct. Elsewhere Perelman has confirmed as correct an understanding presented by those who produced the “Report of the Committee on the Nature of Rhetorical Invention”: that there may be many universal audiences “although not in a single situation,” and that the real task in the process of persuasion is not
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to address two audiences but to “transform the particularities of an audience into universal dimensions” (1989: 246). What the concept of the universal audience allows us to do is to keep our focus on the immediate audience with the particular cognitive claims relevant to its situation, while recognizing a standard of reasonableness which should envelop that audience, and which it should acknowledge whenever recourse to the universal audience is required.16 In this way we can understand Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s repeated insistence that the strength of an argument is a function of the audience, and that in evaluating arguments we must look first and foremost at the audience. The universal audience is not a model of ideal competence introduced into the argumentative situation from the outside. It is developed out of the particular audience and so is essentially connected to it. Given this explanation, it is not surprising to see critics moved to charge that Perelman espouses relativism. As van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1995) explain it, Perelman reduces the soundness of argumentation to the determinations of the audience. “This means that the standard of reasonableness is extremely relative. Ultimately, there could be just as many definitions of reasonableness as there are audiences” (124). Introducing the universal audience as the principle of reasonableness to mitigate this problem only shifts the source of the concern to the arguer. Since the universal audience is a construct of the arguer, now there will be as many definitions of reasonableness as there are arguers. Here, though, some of the other features of the account I have been describing come into play. The criticism again favours the perspective of the arguer (in control; determining the universal) and overlooks the role of the actual audience. The charge that there will be as many universal audiences as there are arguers fails to give due consideration to what a dialogical model of argumentation, as I have developed it, makes clear: that in a very real sense the “arguer” will only exist for us in relation to an “argument” in situation. And this argument is a unique event involving the particulars of speakers and their situation and the universal audience relevant to them. It is not a matter of each arguer deciding the universal audience in some arbitrary way, such that there are as many universal audiences as there are arguers. It is a matter of the argumentative situation determining the limits on how the universal audience can be conceived in that case, and the respondent or particular audience playing a co-authoring role in that decision. The argumentative situation imposes clear constraints on the freedom of the arguer. The traditional (philosophical) view of the universal audience, which Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca resist, sees the universality involved as a kind of detached reason, Cartesian in its firm convictions. Why, as one critic has put it, would anyone want (or need) to argue with such an audience? Why, indeed. Real audiences are made up of people in whom reason is not separated from other human fac-
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ulties. Yet what other source do we have for principles of good argumentation (reasonableness) if not the audiences who live it, and modify it, across time and across communities. We disagree on what is reasonable and struggle to resolve disputes precisely because it is not established in advance but emerges, where it emerges, through our argumentative practice. To succeed in argumentation on terms acceptable to all parties to a dispute is to accede to an understanding of reasonableness evoked by the situation. This is the universal within the particular. To ignore this is to overlook the difficulties of how we build reasonable communities, how those communities speak to each other; and how the ideas of reasonableness coalesce and grow. Reasonableness arises from the practices of actual reasoners, it is not an abstract code independent of them that they consult for corroboration. Where do our standards of logical argument originate? Are they a priori in us, or developed over time, learned and refined? The developing story of formal logic, from Aristotle to the Stoics to the systems of the twentieth century suggest a developing face of reason, and studies of other cultures, while controversial, may undermine beliefs that even that model of reason is universal (see Levi, 2000). It matters also that this measure of reasonableness is not the logical perspective coming in and stealing the scene. This measure is an audience, connected to a real audience; the process is rhetorical. This concept, together with the account of figures, indicates the nature of rationality inherent in the argumentation that I am calling rhetorical. It is clear, though, that the idea of rhetoric expressed here is not necessarily the idea that informs the project of strategic maneuvering, even though each can profit from what the other provides. In reflection, I have taken ‘rhetoric’ as a complex idea and indirectly attempted something of a dissociation here, understanding that process in terms of the clarifications to be found in van Rees (2005; 2002), although I have not stressed one side of the separation (the traditional negative view).17 Similar attempts go back at least to Plato’s Phaedrus, where he extracts both a positive and negative view of rhetoric, depending on the criteria involved. I certainly have tried to resolve the contradictions apparent in the original notion, allowing that statements about rhetoric are true on one interpretation of the term, while denying this holds for another interpretation. And I have clearly assigned value to the positive interpretation that I want to defend and see developed (van Rees, 2005). If this dissociation is in any way successful, it will bring us back to the opening stage of our “dispute” (van Rees, 2002: 2), because it now serves as a fresh point of departure for the discussion.
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4.
Conclusion
We may resist the suggestion that rhetoric’s role in argumentation is exhausted by, or limited to, its use in strategic maneuvering. And we may debate the respective importance of the roles of arguer and audiences in argumentative exchanges. But the accomplishments achieved by refocusing pragma-dialectics on the value of rhetoric through the strategic maneuvering project cannot be underestimated. Argumentation, as Peter Houtlosser (1995) reminds us, is always about something; something that will be defended or attacked. How that issue is presented governs the success of the argumentation. And this is where the employment of rhetoric as “the theoretical study of practical persuasion techniques” (van Eemeren & Houtlosser, 1999c: 483) in the processes of strategic maneuvering comes to the fore. The choices in approaching issues, the way presence is addressed and experienced, and the devices employed to engage minds all clearly influence the character and success of argumentation. This is on every level a serious recognition of the way rhetoric permeates our argumentative events. The legacy that Peter Houtlosser leaves through his collaborative work with Frans van Eemeren is one rich in details and powerful in the research program it invites. That is, in the end, perhaps strategic maneuvering’s most welcome feature, that it invites others, critics and adherents alike, to take up its insights and move them forward.18
References Aristotle. (1984). The complete works of Aristotle: The revised Oxford translation. (J. Barnes, Ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bakhtin, M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays. (C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Trans.). Austin: University of Austin Press. Bakhtin, M. (1986). Speech genres & other later essays. (C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press. Crosswhite, J. (1996). The rhetoric of reason: Writing and the attractions of argument. Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Grootendorst, R. (1995). Perelman and the fallacies. Philosophy and Rhetoric, 28, 122–133. Eemeren, F.H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (1999a). Delivering the goods in a critical discussion. In F. H. van Eemeren, A. J. Blair, Ch. Willard & B. Garssen (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fourth Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation (pp. 163–168). Amsterdam: Sic Sat. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (1999b). William the Silent’s argumentative discourse. In F. H. van Eemeren, A. J. Blair, Ch. Willard & B. Garssen (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fourth
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Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation (pp. 168–172). Amsterdam: Sic Sat. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (1999c). Strategic manoeuvering in argumentative discourse. Discourse Studies, 1(4), 479–497. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2000a). Rhetoric in pragma-dialectics. Argumentation, Interpretation, Rhetoric, 1. Retrieved from www.argumentation.spb.ru/2000_1/index.htm Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2000b). Rhetorical analysis within a pragma-dialectical framework: The case of R. J. Reynolds. Argumentation, 14, 293–305. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2001). Clear thinking in troubled times: An integrated pragma-dialectical analysis. Informal Logic, 21(2), 17–30. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2002a). Strategic maneuvering: 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, NL: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 131–59. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2002b). Strategic manoeuvering with the burden of proof. In F. H. van Eemeren (Ed.), Advances in pragma-dialectics (pp. 13–29). Amsterdam: Sic Sat. Eemeren, F. H. van & Houtlosser, P. (2004). More about fallacies as derailments of strategic maneuvering: The case of tu quoque. In H. V. Hansen, C. W. Tindale, J. A. Blair, R. H. Johnson and R. C. Pinto (Eds.), Argumentation and its applications: Informal Logic @ 25, CD ROM ISBN 0-9683461-2-X-3-8. 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 argument: Proceedings of a conference at McMaster University (pp. 75–84). Hamilton, ON: Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation. Fahnestock, J. (1999). Rhetorical figures in science. New York: Oxford University Press. Foss, S. K., & Griffin, C. L. (1995). Beyond persuasion: A proposal for an invitational rhetoric. Communication Monographs, 62, 2–18. Gross, A., & Dearin, R. (2003). Chaim Perelman. Albany: State University of New York Press. Houtlosser, P. (1995). Identifying the point of argumentation. In F. H. van Eemeren et al. (Eds.), Reconstruction and application: Proceedings of the Third Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation (pp. 168–176). Amsterdam: Sic Sat. Johnson, R.H. (2000). Manifest rationality: A pragmatic theory of argument. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Kennedy, G. (1991). Aristotle on rhetoric: A theory of civic discourse. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Levi, D. (2000). In defense of informal logic. Dordrecht, NL: Kluwer Academic Publishers. McCabe, M. M. (1994). Arguments in context: Aristotle’s defense of rhetoric. In D. J. Furley & A. Nehamas (Eds.), Aristotle’s rhetoric: Philosophical essays (pp. 129–165). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Perelman, C. (1989). The new rhetoric and the rhetoricians: Remembrances and comments. In R. D. Dearin (Ed.), The new rhetoric of Chaim Perelman: Statement and response (pp. 239–251). New York: University Press of America. Perelman, C., & Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1969). The new rhetoric: A treatise on argumentation (J. Wilkinson & P. Weaver, Trans.). Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Pinto, R.C. (2001). Argument, inference and dialectic: Collected papers on informal logic with an introduction by Hans V. Hansen. Dordrecht, NL: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Plato. (1997). Complete works. (J. M. Cooper, Ed.). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
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Reboul, O. (1989). The figure and the argument. In M. Meyer (Ed.), From metaphysics to rhetoric (pp. 169–181). Dordrecht, Holland: Kluwer Academic. Rees, M. A. van (2002). Argumentative functions of dissociation in every-day discussions. In H. V. Hansen et al. (Eds.), Argumentation and its applications. Windsor: OSSA. Rees, M. A. van (2005). Indications of dissociation. In F.H. van Eemeren & P. Houtlosser (Eds.), Argumentation in practice (pp. 53–67). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co. Schiappa, E. (2003). Defining reality: Definitions and the politics of meaning. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois Press. Tindale, C. W. (1999) Acts of arguing: A rhetorical model of argumentation. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Tindale, C. W. (2004) Rhetorical argumentation: Principles of theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Toulmin, S. (2001). Return to reason. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Notes 1. It is noted, for example, that for some modern theoreticians “the rhetorical norm of effectiveness is in contradiction with the conception of reasonableness that lies at the heart of dialectic” (van Eemeren & Houtlosser, 2000a: 3). 2. Van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2000b: 141n) warn against treating audience adaptation as the overriding or only characteristic of rhetoric. This is an appropriate concern, if rhetoric’s application to argumentation is reduced to audience alone. But I do take audience to be the overriding consideration for the reasons to be explained. 3. Some informal logicians do indeed seem to recognize this relationship. Pinto (2001: 119), for example, considers the shift in focus from argument products to argument processes. 4. For van Eemeren & Houtlosser, the audience is not just this ensemble of those whom the speaker wishes to influence, but coincides with the antagonist in a critical discussion (1999a: 166, n. 82). 5. My thinking on this was prompted and influenced by James Crosswhite’s discussion of audience as a way in which human beings are (1996:139). 6. Foss and Griffin also identify rhetorics described as “Conversion,” and “Advising” (1995: 2). 7. I think this holds even when, as is the case with pragma-dialectics, the roles of arguer and audience (as antagonist) shift back and forth, with each party contributing strategic moves. The sense of co-operation that I want to stress still seems, at best, diminished. But I am grateful to Jan Albert van Laar for drawing to my attention the importance of this distinction. 8. Admittedly, this common ground will be stronger and weaker depending on the audiences. Where cross-cultural argumentation is at stake, we have deeper challenges. But commonality still must exist, on these terms, for argumentation to be possible. 9. Charles Sears Baldwin, Ancient rhetoric and poetic, cited in Dearin (Ed.) 1989: 1.
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10. That is, in the early Aristotelian tradition. 11. And with this, van Eemeren and Houtlosser are in agreement (1999c: 483), although not on the same terms. 12. Note here I have fallen into the tendency of the literature to treat ‘reasonable’ and ‘rational’ as synonyms, and not retained the opposition between argumentation and demonstration that Perelman adopts for these terms; an opposition that seems later also to have been adopted by Toulmin (2001: 2). 13. The title of the relevant chapter in Gross and Dearin’s (2003) study of Perelman, “The Figures as Argument,” suggests a thesis similar to the one I have defended here. But with the exceptions of irony and metaphor, their discussion and examples are actually intended only “to demonstrate the pervasiveness of figures as a component of arguments” (130). 14. I do not include Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s insistence that to be argumentative a figure must actually bring about a change of perspective in an audience. Some figures arise in situations that show them to be clearly argumentative in intent, regardless of whether they are effective (Tindale, 2004: 75). 15. For a full discussion of this and other figures as argument see Tindale, 2004: Chapter 3. 16. In comments on this, Professor Schulz rightly identifies the challenge here to be one regarding the relationship between particular cognitive claims and the standard provided by the universal audience. He observes that if an opinion is to be held in a rational way, then conditions related to both of these must be met. On this I think we are in agreement. Where we disagree is with respect to the degree of relativity that governs the rules of theoretical rationality. 17. Nor am I making a claim about the “real nature” of rhetoric, whatever that might be, which Schiappa (2003: 37) seems to take as a feature of dissociation. I am presenting this as a viable way to understand rhetoric’s involvement in the structures that enfold and characterize argumentation. 18. This is a revision of the paper that appeared in Argumentation 20 (2006). Earlier versions were read in Amsterdam at the Agnes van Rees conference on Strategic Maneuvering, October 2006; and by the members of the Centre for Research in Reasoning, Argumentation and Rhetoric (CRRAR) at Windsor, Ontario. I am grateful to the conference audience and the CRRAR members for their insightful comments and discussion. In particular, I would like to thank my Amsterdam commentator, Peter Schulz, for his constructive critique, and Jan Albert van Laar for his helpful comments on the written paper.
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Plausible and fallacious strategies to silence one’s opponent Manfred Kienpointner
1.
Strategic maneuvering and freedom of speech
In this paper, I would like to take a closer look at instances of argumentative discourse where persuasive effects of strategic maneuvering can be observed, and which are potentially, but not necessarily, fallacious. I would like to defend a position which assumes that there is a continuum ranging from cases of strategic maneuvering which are rationally acceptable or at least plausible to a certain degree, to other cases where strategic maneuvering is at least dubious or even clearly fallacious. At a general level, in recent contributions to argumentation theory it has been rightly claimed that not all instances of strategic maneuvering can be considered to be fallacious. For example, from a pragma-dialectic point of view, strategic maneuvering is acceptable as long as the norms for the rational solution of a conflict with the help of a critical discussion are not violated (cf. van Eemeren & Houtlosser 2002, p. 16): […] we would like to claim that there is nothing inconsistent about attempting to resolve a difference of opinion and trying to do so in one’s own favour, even though there is indeed a potential discrepancy between pursuing dialectical objectives and rhetorical aims. This potential discrepancy gives rise to the management of the discourse that we call strategic maneuvering, which is aimed at making the strongest possible case while at the same time avoiding any moves that are clearly unreasonable.
At a more specific level, the problem of deciding whether strategic maneuvering has derailed and become fallacious in specific cases has to be solved. In this respect, van Eemeren & Houtlosser (2003, p. 3) remark that there is still much to be done within fallacy theory (cf. also Woods, 2004):
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(1) [A]dequate criteria for deciding in concrete cases univocally whether or not a certain rule has been violated are still lacking; (2) no explanation has been given for why a lot of fallacies can be so persuasive; (3) no clues have been given as to why fallacies do so easily go unnoticed.
I suppose that a detailed analysis of case studies can be helpful in order to solve some of the problems mentioned by van Eemeren & Houtlosser (2003). More particularly, I wish to explore strategies to silence one’s opponent and to distinguish between legitimate and dubious or fallacious ways to do so, to prevent one’s opponent from defending their point of view. As to further case studies, I refer to van Eemeren’s (2008) collection of case studies involving strategic maneuvering in differing institutional types of argumentative discourse (e.g. forensic discourse, parliamentary discourse, presidential debates, campaign speeches; cf. Feteris, 2008; Ieţcu-Fairclough, 2008; Mohammed, 2008; Zarefsky, 2008) and to my analysis of fallacious instances of strategic maneuvering in fraudulent e-mail messages (cf. Kienpointner, 2006). Now at first sight it seems to be rationally unacceptable to reduce the domain of applying the fundamental human right of freedom of speech. This human right has been postulated within Pragma-Dialectics as the first rule of the code of conduct for rational discussants (cf. van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1992, pp. 208–209): Rule (1) Parties must not prevent each other from advancing standpoints or from casting doubts on standpoints.
A more recent and more detailed version of rule (1) is given in van Eemeren & Grootendorst (2004, p. 136; italics by van Eemeren & Grootendorst): Rule 1 a. Special conditions apply neither to the propositional content of the assertives by which a standpoint is expressed, nor to the propositional content of the negation of the commissive by means of which a standpoint is called into question. b. In the performance of these assertives and negative commissives, no special preparatory conditions apply to the position or status of the speaker or writer and listener or reader.
Freedom of speech is also mentioned within a few catalogues on basic human rights, such as article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights accepted by the United Nations’ General Assembly in 1948 and similar covenants and charters which followed this declaration:
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Article 19 Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly 1948)
However, the fulfillment of article 19 is not an easy matter. This is shown by the fact that, for instance, the corresponding Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (which was adopted by the General Assembly of the UNO 1966 and came into effect in 1976) contains several remarks on the limits and restrictions of freedom of speech (The same holds for article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) adopted under the auspices of the Council of Europe in 1950): Article 19 1. Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference. 2. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice. 3. The exercise of the rights provided for in paragraph 2 of this article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary: a. For respect of the rights or reputations of others; b. For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals.
The specific cases I am going to analyze all involve emotional arguments such as arguments ad baculum, ad hominem and ad misericordiam, which are formulated in a persuasive way. So strategic maneuvering in all these cases involves not only “an expedient selection from the options constituting the topical potential associated with a particular discussion stage”, but also consists in “selecting a responsive adaption to audience demand, and exploiting the appropriate presentational devices” (van Eemeren & Houtlosser, 2002, p. 16). In the following, I will argue that attempts to silence the opponent are justifiable to differing degrees in the following contexts: 1. In highly exceptional cases, for example, if Austrian or German citizens deny the holocaust, restrictions of the freedom of speech can be rationally justified,
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even if in this case the potential opponent is prohibited from expressing his or her opinion by sanctions of law, that is, the silencing of the opponent is politically institutionalized. 2. Strategies of silencing the opponent are dubious, but still plausible to a certain degree if there are no such institutionalized sanctions and the proponent tries to silence the opponent by plausible, albeit defeasible means of argumentation which could be acceptable at least in specific situations. 3. Strategies of silencing the opponent are highly dubious if the strategies employed clearly exceed rational techniques of argumentation, for example, by appealing to strong emotions in such a graphic way that it becomes almost impossible for the opponent to defend his or her point of view. 4. Strategies of silencing one’s opponent are clearly fallacious if restrictions of the right of freedom of speech are not restricted to exceptional cases, are enforced by legal sanctions and are not justified by plausible arguments.
2.
Case studies
2.1
The prohibition of neo-Nazi activities
In Austria, all neo-Nazi activities are prohibited by law (“Verbotsgesetz”/ “Prohibition law”, May 8, 1945). This seems to be a clear violation of the principle of freedom of speech because the law also sanctions any kind of playing down of the effects of the holocaust in public discourse in paragraph 3h (quoted according to the amendment of the Prohibition Law dating from the year 1992, published in the “Bundesgesetzblatt 148”; similarly, the denial of the holocaust is forbidden according to § 130 (prohibition of the incitement of the masses) of the German penal code): § 3 h. Nach § 3g wird auch bestraft, wer in einem Druckwerk, im Rundfunk oder in einem anderen Medium oder wer sonst öffentlich auf eine Weise, daß es vielen Menschen zugänglich wird, den nationalsozialistischen Völkermord oder andere nationalsozialistische Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit leugnet, gröblich verharmlost, gutheißt oder zu rechtfertigen sucht. ‘§ 3 h. According to § 3 h anybody is punishable, who, in a printed text, on the radio or in another medium or in public, in another way, making the message publicly accessible for many persons, denies, strongly downplays, approves or tries to justify the National Socialist genocide or other National Socialist crimes against humanity.’
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Moreover, this law also involves a fear appeal (cf. Walton 2000) because any rightwing politician either has to choose to remain quiet and to conceal his/her feelings or else face considerable sanctions, that is, 1–20 years in prison. So this prohibition to express certain opinions could at the same time also be considered to be an example of the argument ad baculum (cf. Walton, Reed, and Macagno, 2008, pp. 102–106). To give an example, John Gudenus, former member of the Bundesrat (the Second Chamber of the Austrian Parliament) for the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), was sentenced to one year suspended sentence on April 26, 2006. This was the result of two media interviews (the first given to a news magazine (Report) of the Austrian public TV station ORF on April 18, 2005, the second given to the Austrian newspaper DER STANDARD on June 8, 2005), in which Gudenus had expressed doubts whether gas chambers really existed and if so, whether they existed on the territory of the Third Reich: (1) Und ich glaube Charles Popper hat gesagt man soll nicht Tabus aufstellen, sondern man soll physikalisch und wissenschaftlich prüfen. [...] Ich glaube, man sollte dieses Thema ernsthaft debattieren und nicht auf eine Frage du musst es ja oder nein beantworten. [...] Ich bin der Meinung, ich fordere eine, immer wiederum eine Prüfung. (April 18, 2005, ORF Magazin Report) ‘And I believe Charles Popper said that you should not uphold taboos, but you should investigate (everything) according to physics and science. […] I believe you should discuss this issue seriously and not – after a question – you must answer it with yes or no. […] I have the opinion, I ask for a, always again an investigation.’ (ad verbatim) (2) Es gab Gaskammern, aber nicht im Dritten Reich. Sondern in Polen. So steht das auch in Schulbüchern. Ich habe nie gesagt, dass ich prinzipiell Gaskammern anzweifle. (June 8, 2005, STANDARD) ‘There were gas chambers, but not in the Third Reich. Only in Poland. That’s what the school books say. I have never said that I question gas chambers generally.’
After the first interview, the attorney general began an investigation, which was stopped shortly afterwards. On April 27, 2005, Gudenus had to leave the FPÖ. After his second interview, the attorney general began an investigation which led to the loss of the parliamentary privileges of Gudenus and his being put on trial, where he received a one year suspended sentence. Now the question arises whether this restriction of freedom of speech can be justified as legitimate strategic maneuvering by the state, that is, as a justifiable restriction on the topics politicians or other citizens are allowed to choose for their public statements and arguments (cf. also Mohammed, 2008, 383). Are we
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supposed to argue with a right-wing politician who invokes the authority of Karl Popper and the principle of falsification in order to doubt the existence of gas chambers? If any standpoint can and should be challenged, does this also hold for the assumption that the holocaust really took place? As far as I am concerned, I assume that a good case can be made for the plausibility of the legal restriction mentioned above, despite the resulting violation of the right of freedom of speech. Here are the most important arguments: 1. On a highly general, philosophical level, it has to be admitted that not everything can be doubted anyway. Doubt, in order to be possible, needs assumptions which are not doubted (cf. Wittgenstein, 1984, p. 186). One can legitimately criticize Aristotle’s point of view in his Topics (book 1, paragraph 11), where he states that those who doubt that snow is white are not in need of arguments but of more adequate perception, and those who doubt that we should worship the gods and love our parents, are not in need of arguments but of punishment. Disagreeing with Aristotle’s rather conservative and slightly authoritarian remarks, however, we can still agree with Wittgenstein, because doubting everything simply results in self-contradiction. 2. More particularly, the existence of gas chambers in the Third Reich has been proved “beyond reasonable doubt” (for ample documentation cf. e.g.: VidalNaquet, 1992; http://www.yadvashem.org). The wealth of verbal and visual documentation, the ample research done by social scientists and the testimony of eye witnesses has proven their existence to be a certainty. 3. To re-examine issues which have already been proven beyond reasonable doubt, without substantial new evidence or new arguments being brought forward, would be a waste of intellectual energy which could be much better applied elsewhere. 4. To allow neo-Nazis to bring forward their arguments publicly, which deny the right of existence of democratic societies, and postulate their destruction, would be a kind of false tolerance, a self-destructive attitude by democracies. Moreover, it would falsely create a public image of their point of view as an equally respectable position in a controversial discussion (cf. Tannen, 2004, p. 55). 5. Even if some other countries have chosen not to impose restrictions and sanctions on the public expression of neo-Nazi views, the specific historical background in Austria and Germany makes an optimistic attitude of the kind “This time we will convince them peacefully by means of rational persuasion, the same things will not happen once more even if we allow them to express their horrible opinions” totally unacceptable. Millions of innocent victims of
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this ideology call for restrictions and legal sanctions for its public expression at least in the countries where Hitler and his followers started to argue their “case” (but note that similar restrictions exist in many other countries, for example, in Belgium, France, Israel, Canada, The Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, Spain and South Africa). It makes a big difference if the principle of freedom of speech is restricted only to those radical views which are banned from public discourse because they have been proven to be catastrophic in human history. Of course, this exception does not allow one to sanction all oppositional or politically radical views which are expressed in public. This would be unacceptable, at least for truly pluralist, democratic societies (cf. below).
2.2 Ad hominem attacks in political discourse The following example is a passage from a TV debate that took place on September 21, 2006, on the ORF, the Austrian public TV station. A few days before the general elections for the Upper House (“Nationalrat”) of the Austrian parliament, the former Austrian chancellor, Wolfgang Schüssel, former leader of the Austrian Conservative Party (ÖVP), and Alfred Gusenbauer, the successor of Schüssel as Austrian chancellor and former leader of the Austrian Social Democrats (SPÖ), discuss the problem of the large number of Austrian citizens in need of permanent care. The relatives of these people often hire nurses from abroad (most of the time from the Czech Republic or Slovakia), who earn much less money than Austrian nurses. Approximately 40.000 persons work according to these employment conditions, illegally, according to the respective Austrian laws, which are, however, now in the process of being reformed. As Schüssel had claimed in earlier public statements that there was no serious problem for persons in need of permanent care in Austria, while at the same time his mother-in-law was taken care of by nurses from abroad, Gusenbauer attacked him with a circumstantial variant of the argument ad hominem (of the type: “You are not practising what you preach”). This highly competitive attack made Schüssel furious and he, too, used a subtype of ad hominem attack in his reply, namely the abusive variant questioning the physical and mental (moral) qualities of the opponent (cf. Walton, 1998; Walton et al., 2008, 140–162). A few minutes earlier, Gusenbauer had used a handkerchief to wipe his upper lip, where beads of perspiration were clearly visible in a close-up shot of the TV camera:
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(3) GU: [...] Ich sag/ich sag Ihnen, was eine WIRKliche Bedrohung ist. SCH: Bitte. GU: Nämlich wann ein Bundeskanzler ein Vorbild an ILLegalität sein will. Weil dass Sie hier im Fernsehen erKLÄRT haben, Sie würden ein ZWEItes Mal es genau so machen und anraten, dass Verwandte von Ihnen ILLegal gepflegt werden, des is nicht meine Vorstellung von einem Bundeskanzler, der soll nämlich anstehende Probleme lösen. [...] SCH: (1 Sekunde Pause) Jetz versteh i Ihre Schweißperlen auf der St/auf der Lippe. Mit diesem Untergriff haben Sie sich endgültig disqualifiziert. Ich würde NIEmals Ihre Familie hereinziehen, niemals. ‘GU: [...] I tell/I tell you what’s a REal threat. SCH: What is? GU: Namely, when a chancellor wants to be a model of illeGALity. Because you have deCLARED here on TV, that you would do exactly the same thing a SECond time and give the advice that relatives of yours should be taken care of ilLEGally, that is not my concept of a chancellor, who is supposed to solve urgent problems. [...] SCH: (pause of 1 second) Now I understand why you’ve got beads of perspiration on your fo-/on your lip. With this unfair trick you have disqualified yourself forever. I would NEver bring your family into it, never.’ Transcription symbols: GU = Gusenbauer; SCH = Schüssel; CAPITALS = syllable with special emphasis; [...] = omitted passages; / = self correction.
At first sight, Schüssel’s counter attack does not seem acceptable because of its irrelevance: Gusenbauer’s sweating has nothing to do with his arguments about permanent care in Austria. Moreover, his fictitious argument involving justice (“I would never mention your family in a public debate, so mentioning my family, you have disqualified yourself with this unfair attack”) seems to be a problematic attempt to silence Gusenbauer as far as private issues are concerned. Furthermore, his appeal to justice shares the general weakness of all fictitious arguments: Schüssel could not prove that he really would refrain from bringing in Gusenbauer’s family because at the time no family member of Gusenbauer needed the help of nurses from abroad. What is more, apart from having a bad conscience, Gusenbauer’s transpiration can be easily explained with the high temperature in the TV-studio and his (maybe too heavy) makeup. However, both ad hominem attacks could be justified as being relevant arguments, at least to a certain degree. Political leaders cannot claim the same right of privacy as ordinary citizens because the consistency of their private and public
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behaviour can be intimately connected with the well-being of the whole nation. Certain aspects of their personality such as credibility, honesty, stress management (note that perspiration is interpreted by Schüssel as a sign of a bad conscience and/or nervousness) are extremely relevant for future prime ministers (cf. Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1983, p. 395; Kienpointner, 1992, p. 319 on “person-act” arguments; Walton et al., 2008, pp. 140–147 on “ethotic arguments”). As this is true for both politicians, although their mutual attacks threaten their positive and negative faces in the sense of politeness theory (cf. Brown & Levinson, 1987), both are somehow justifiable in the context of a competitive TV debate, which, as far as the dialogue type is concerned, often comes close to an eristic dialogue (cf. Walton, 1992, 1998, 1999; Kienpointner, 2008). Moreover, as far as freedom of speech is concerned, Schüssel did not have any institutional power to sanction Gusenbauer for his circumstantial ad hominem attack. In democratic societies, institutional sanctions violating the principle of freedom of speech are acceptable only in really exceptional cases, such as the prohibition of neo-Nazi activities discussed above. Schüssel’s only strategic option, therefore, was the attempt to silence Gusenbauer on private issues by persuasive argumentative means, namely, his abusive ad hominem attack and his fictitious appeal to justice. Furthermore, Schüssel’s attempt to silence Gusenbauer on certain private issues cannot be condemned completely because politicians, too, should be granted that there are limits to making their private life an issue of a public debate (cf. Tannen, 2004, pp. 78–132). Therefore, Schüssel’s and Gusenbauer’s ad hominem attacks seem to be extremely problematic discussion moves, but not a clear case of a fallacious instance of strategic maneuvering (cf. Zarefsky, 2008, p. 328).
2.3 Drastic appeals to pity As for other emotional arguments traditionally labelled as fallacies, Walton (1997) has shown in the case of appeals to pity that they can be plausible arguments in certain contexts (cf. also Walton et al., 2008, pp. 108–112). When is this fallacious, then? Walton’s answer contains the following two important elements: 1. The argument ad misericordiam tends to be fallacious when it is used “to seal off the asking of critical questions that would be appropriate for properly deliberating on the question at issue”, when the dramatic impact of the emotional appeal is used “to block further questioning” (Walton, 1997, pp. 158–159). 2. The argument ad misericordiam “is most dangerous as a fallacy when the visual or dramatic appeal to feeling – in itself a legitimate type of argument – is blown out of proportion, due to its dramatic impact” (Walton, 1997, p. 160).
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In the first case, the speaker is going too far because he or she ignores or suppresses critical questions, which should be asked to test the plausibility of the appeal to pity, for example (cf. similarly Walton, 1997, p. 155):
Q1. Is x really in need of help? Q2. Will bringing about A by y really help or relieve this distress? Q3. Is it possible for y to bring about A? Q4. Would negative side effects of y’s bringing about A be too great?
If these or similar critical questions are blocked by the argument ad misericordiam, it becomes fallacious (for some clearly fallacious instances of arguments ad misericordiam cf. Kienpointner, 2006). In the second case, visual messages which accompany verbal argumentation can be so drastic that rational argumentation becomes almost impossible. Quite often, both verbal and visual strategies are combined. A clearly fallacious appeal to pity was the message presented by Nayirah, a fifteen-year-old Kuwaiti girl who testified on October 10, 1990, in a hearing before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, that Iraqi soldiers had pulled babies from incubators in Kuwait (quoted after Walton, 1997, p. 128): (4) Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is Nayirah, and I just came out of Kuwait. While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the children to die on the cold floor [crying] It was horrifying.
This atrocity story was an appeal to pity and proved to play a major role in the decision of the U.S. Senate on January 10, 1991 to go to war against Iraq. President George Bush mentioned it at least ten times in the weeks following the broadcast of Nayirah’s story in U.S. media and “[s]even U.S. senators cited Nayirah’s testimony in speeches backing the use of force” (Walton, 1997, p. 129). In the end, however, it turned out that Nayirah (actually Nijirah al-Sabah) was the daughter of Saud Nasir al-Sabah, the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States, and a member of Kuwait’s royal family. Subsequent investigations, including interviews with Kuwaiti medical officials (pediatricians, obstetricians) revealed that there was no evidence whatsoever for the incubator story. So Nayirah’s story turned out to be a classical example of black propaganda (cf. Jowett & O’Dowell, 1992). But even if we assume, for one moment and for the sake of the argument, that Nayirah’s story had been true, the highly dramatic presentation (note the nonverbal aspect of Nayirah’s crying) and the horrible topic selected for to make the military invasion of Iraq almost inevitable, namely, the brutal treatment of the babies by Iraqi soldiers, could be criticised as a highly problematic instance of strategic maneuvering. The verbal and visual techniques employed by Hill and
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Knowlton, the public relations firm promoting a military intervention (cf. Walton 1997, p. 130) were likely to prevent a fully critical deliberation, that is, a careful assessment of all the pro’s and con’s of starting a war. In this way attempts were made to silence critical opponents in an illegitimate way. Even more drastic are the persuasive visual strategies used by Pro-Life lobby groups. Although the issue is a complex one and both pro-life and pro-choice lobbyists have some strong arguments for their point of view (e.g. invoking the human rights of unborn children vs. the human rights of women, respectively), the aggressive pictures used in the campaigns of Pro-Life groups and on their websites seem to convey a conversational implicature such as “Seeing these pictures, any morally responsible person has to do everything to prevent further abortions, so how can you go on to argue for abortion instead of joining our side?”. Moreover, verbal techniques of presentation such as metaphor are also used in a most aggressive way. Frequently, pro-life texts portray legal abortion as “genocide” or “holocaust”. Comparisons of abortion with genocide or the holocaust can also be criticized as instances of the fallacy of “false analogy” (on sound and fallacious instances of the argument from analogy cf. Walton et al., 2008, pp. 48–55). For example, the following passage from a Pro-Life website contains problematic comparisons between the Nuremberg laws and slave societies with U.S. legislation on abortion (and the shocking pictures of aborted fetuses shown on the same website, which could be analysed as visual arguments; cf. Groarke, 2002), make a reasonable discussion of the pro’s and con’s of abortion very difficult indeed: (5) In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws codified the exclusion of Jews from German society. The next year, the Reichsgericht (Germany’s highest court) essentially legalized the Holocaust. Cartoons routinely depicted Jews as pigs, dogs, rats, and other vermin. In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court declared Blacks “...a subordinate and inferior class of beings...” in [Dred] Scott v. Sandford. Black slaves were often assigned diminutive names, such as “Mingo,” that were normally reserved for pets. In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court found that “the word ‘person,’ as used in the [Constitution], does not include the unborn.” Today, unwanted children are spoken of in dehumanizing terms: “embryo,” “fetus,” “products of conception,” etc. (cf. http://www.blackgenocide.org/abortion.html, April 13, 2007)
All in all, then, appeals to pity using excessively drastic verbal and visual means of argumentation for their standpoint in order to seal off the discussion and to silence the opponent are highly problematic strategic moves. They could be plausibly called instances of “derailed strategic maneuvering”, that is, arguments ad misericordiam which are used to silence opponents by dubious means of visual and verbal presentation.
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2.4 Silencing political opponents The clearest cases of fallacious attempts to silence an opponent are to be found in the frequent practice of totalitarian states (e.g. both right-wing and left-wing dictatorships) to generally forbid public criticism of members of the regime, its laws, its policy and its ideological background. Here the right of freedom of speech is prohibited at a highly general level, that is, it is not restricted to very specific, exceptional cases. Furthermore, this prohibition is enforced by serious legal sanctions (including imprisonment, mistreatment, torture). Finally, very often the prohibition is not justified by arguments at all, but simply enforced by threatening, arresting and mistreating political opponents and their families (a non-argument variety of ad baculum appeals, cf. Walton 2000, p. 174). To give but one recent example: Ironically, Article 301 of the Turkish penal code does not sanction the denial of a genocide, but the public claim that a genocide indeed took place, namely, the genocide of the Armenian population in the Ottoman Empire in the years 1915–1917. This Article 301 sanctions the public denigration of “Turkishness, the Turkish Republic and the Great National Assembly of Turkey” (“Türklüğü, Cumhuriyeti ve TBMM’yi alenen aşağılama”; TBMM = Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi) by imprisonment between six months and three years: (6) Türklüğü, Cumhuriyeti, Devletin kurum ve organlarını aşağılama MADDE 301. – (1) Türklüğü, Cumhuriyeti veya Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisini alenen aşağılayan kişi, altı aydan üç yıla kadar hapis cezası ile cezalandırılır. ‘The denigration of Turkishness, the Turkish Republic, institutions and agencies of the state Article 301. – (1) A person who denigrates Turkishness, the Turkish Republic or the Great National Assembly of Turkey in public, is punished by imprisonment from 6 months to 3 years.’
Apart from the fact that “denigration” as a term of law leaves too much room for interpretation and, thus, for general intimidation and suppression of critical citizens, the Armenian genocide is now already widely accepted as a historical fact, for example, by the European Parliament, by more than 20 individual states, among them Argentina, Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Russia, Switzerland), and by distinguished social scientists, such as the Turkish historian Taner Akçam (cf. Akçam, 2006), who has repeatedly been threatened by Turkish nationalists. The Armenian genocide is also portrayed as a fact by reliable encyclopedias. For example, the online edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica contains the following remark about the massacres ordered by representatives of the Ottoman Empire in 1915–1917:
Plausible and fallacious strategies to silence one’s opponent
In what would later be known as the first genocide of the 20th century, hundreds of thousands of Armenians were driven from their homes, massacred, or marched until they died” (cf. similarly the article “Armenien” in the German Brockhaus Encyclopädie, vol. 2, 1987, p. 124)
Therefore, to claim in public that the genocide took place can hardly be judged to be an exceptional case where the freedom of speech can be restricted legitimately. One could even argue that it is not a clear case of “denigration” of the Turkish Republic because the genocide took place during the last years of the Ottoman Empire. Therefore, it is a case where the restriction of the freedom of speech is not justified by plausible arguments or can only be justified by bad arguments such as the alleged unacceptability of a challenge of chauvinist emotions and nationalist pride. Trials in the year 2006 against prominent Turkish citizens such as the author and Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk or the well-known Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink (assassinated on January 19, 2007 by a Turkish nationalist), who criticized the fact that Turkey still today does not accept the Ottoman Empire’s responsibility of the Armenian genocide, did not lead to their imprisonment. However, the very fact that they could be prosecuted according to Article 301 is alarming. This, then, is a clear case where strategies of silencing the opponent derail as instances of strategic maneuvering.
3.
Conclusions
The case studies analyzed above have shown that there are many different strategic attempts to silence an opponent, not all of which are necessarily fallacious. Some of them are legal sanctions implemented by the state, others are argumentative strategies, both verbal and visual ones. Some of them rely on rational arguments, some appeal (additionally or almost exclusively) to emotions. Strategic maneuvering consisting in attempts to silence an opponent can be justified in exceptional cases, especially when limits to the freedom of speech are not (merely) established by legal sanctions, but (also) justified with reasonable arguments or with arguments which are at least plausible to a certain degree in a specific context. However, not all kinds of argument can justify attempts to silence an opponent. They become problematic and dubious if the opponent is overwhelmed with highly emotional appeals which try to seal off the discussion. Finally, attempts to silence an opponent clearly derail as strategic maneuvering if they restrict the
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human right of freedom of speech at a highly general level and are established by legal sanctions or brutal force rather than justified by plausible arguments.
References Akçam, T. (2006). A shameful act: The Armenian genocide and the question of Turkish responsibility. New York: Metropolitan Books. Aristotle (1960): Posterior analytics (Ed. & Transl.: H. Tredennick), Topica (Ed. & Transl.: E. S. Forster). London: Heinemann. Armenia. (2008). In Encyclopædia Britannica [Retrieved November 09, 2008, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/35178/Armenia] Armenien (1987). In Brockhaus Encyclopädie (Vol. 2, pp. 124–125). Mannheim: Brockhaus Verlag. Brockhaus Encyclopädie (19th ed.) (1987). Mannheim: Brockhaus Verlag. Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bundesgesetzblatt für die Republik Österreich 148: Bundesverfassungsgesetz: Verbotsgesetz-Novelle (1992). Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Staatsdruckerei [Electronic Version, retrieved November 9, 2008 from: www.ris2.bka.gv.at/Dokumente/BgblPdf/1992_148_ 0/1992_148_0.pdf] Eemeren, F. H. van (Ed.) (2008). Special issue: Strategic maneuvering in institutional contexts. Dedicated to Peter Houtlosser (1956–2008). Argumentation, 22(3). Eemeren, F. H. van. & Grootendorst, R. (1992). Argumentation, communication, and fallacies. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Grootendorst, R. (2004). A systematic theory of argumentation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eemeren, F. H., van, & Houtlosser, P. (2002). Strategic maneuvering with the burden of proof. In F. H. van Eemeren (Ed.), Advances in pragma-dialectics (pp. 13–28). Amsterdam: SicSat. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2003). More about fallacies as derailments of strategic maneuvering: The case of tu quoque. In The [CD-rom] proceedings of the IL@25 conference at the University of Windsor. Windsor, Ontario: University of Windsor. Feteris, E. T. (2008). Strategic maneuvering with the intention of the legislator in the justification of judicial decision. Argumentation, 22(3), 335–353. Groarke, L. (2002). Towards a pragma-dialectics of visual argument. In F. H. van Eemeren (Ed.), Advances in pragma-dialectics (pp. 137–151). Amsterdam: SicSat. Ieţcu-Fairclough, I. (2008). Legitimation and strategic maneuvering in the political field. Argumentation, 22(3), 399–417. Jowett, G. S., & O’Dowell, V. (1992). Propaganda and persuasion. London: Sage. Kienpointner, M. (1992). Alltagslogik. Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog. Kienpointner, M. (2006). How to present fallacious messages persuasively. In A. H. van Rees & P. Houtlosser (Eds.), Considering pragma-dialectics (pp. 161–173). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Kienpointner, M. (2008). Impoliteness and emotional arguments. Journal of Politeness Research, 4(2), 243–265. Mohammed, D. (2008). Institutional insights for analysing strategic manoeuvring in the British Prime Minister’s question time. Argumentation, 22(3), 377–393.
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Perelman, Ch. & Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1983). Traité de l’argumentation. La nouvelle rhétorique. Brussels: Éditions de l’Université de Bruxelles. Tannen, D. (2004). Laß uns richtig streiten. München: Goldmann. Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi (Great National Assembly of Turkey)(2004). Türk ceza kanunu. Nr. 5237 (Turkish penal code) [Electronic Source, retrieved November 9, 2008 from: http:// www.tbmm.gov.tr/kanunlar/k5237.html] Vidal-Naquet, P. (1992). Assassins of memory: Essays on the denial of the holocaust. New York: Columbia University Press. Walton, D. N. (1992). The place of emotion in argument. University Park, PA: PennState University Press. Walton, D. N. (1997). Appeal to pity. Argumentum ad misericordiam. New York: SUNY Press. Walton, D. N. (1998). Ad hominem arguments. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. Walton, D. N. (1999). Appeal to popular opinion. University Park, PA.: PennState University Press. Walton, D. N. (2000). Scare tactics. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Walton, D. N., Reed, C., & Macagno, F. (2008). Argumentation schemes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wittgenstein, L. (1984). Über Gewissheit. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Zarefsky, D. (2008). Strategic maneuvering in political argumentation. Argumentation, 22(3), 317–330.
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Strategic maneuvering in direct-to-consumer drug advertising Argument, contestation, and institutions G. Thomas Goodnight
1.
Introduction
The reason d’etre for the study of argumentation, according to Frans van Eemeren and Peter Houtlosser is the “critical analysis of argumentative discourse – the interpretation and evaluation of actual cases of argumentation in light of normative standards for argumentative conduct” (1999, p. 480, van Eemeren et al., 1993). Critical inquiry engages pragma-dialectical analysis of the structure and process of coming to agreement through critical discussion. The dialectical pull of the model recognizes that in each moment of engagement, arguers invoke norms of reasonableness in offering valid or good reasons for coming to agreement; the pragmatic pull recognizes that arguers engage in speech acts that aim at a variety of ends, from simple explication to influence, in the interests of winning assent. Recently, this theory has been extended to “give institutional considerations and requirements their due” by undertaking exploration of “the more or less conventionalized properties of argumentative discourse in a specific kind of institutional practice” such as the law (van Eemeren and Houtlosser, 2002, p. 9; van Eemeren and Houtlosser, 2008, pp. 480–480). The pragma-dialectical turn to institutional argumentation guides this study. The essay investigates strategic maneuvering in a modern field of argumentation practice, health care. The main subject of the study concerns the controversy over direct-to-consumer drug advertising. Traditionally, the advertising of pharmaceuticals has been limited to contact between members of the medical establishment and representatives of the pharmaceutical industry. Through a variety of means including journal advertising, personal inducements, and “detail” provision of information, the health care provider was informed of new products by representatives from the industry. The discussion was limited to interlocutors with suitable
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technical expertise necessary to understand medical risks. Restrictions on advertising were lifted in the United States by the Food and Drug administration during the 1990s. Drug advertisements are now common mass media vehicles of sales in the United States. The ensuing controversy over whether such advertisements result in more or less reasonable discussion between doctor and patient has at its core questions concerning how the new policy effects the strategic maneuvering between physician and patient in reaching a reasonable decision. This paper will (1) identify social institutions as a context for communicative argumentation, (2) specify how institutional conventions set up relationships among providers and clients by structuring practice, (3) discuss the strategic maneuvering between advocates for and against advertising, as each grounds justification for its position in claims to make practice more reasonable, and (4) conclude by illustrating the transformation of strategic maneuvering within a controversy to contestation between the state and the market. The essay advocates an ongoing prama-dialectical intervention into testing the claims of medical marketing.
2.
Social institutions as context for argumentation “Social institutions are usually conceived of as the basic focuses of social organization, common to all societies and dealing with some of the basic universal (Samuel Eisenstadt, 1968, p. 409). problems of ordered social life.”
Argumentation theory is constructed traditionally from the point of view of the single thinker testing claims by the production of valid sequences of inference. More recently, the pragma-dialectical model has resituated the model, finding argument in the communication between interlocutors who are engaged in a conversation where parties seek an informed agreement. The institutional turn extends this paradigm for thinking of argumentation as a communicative activity. Institutions are normative, social constructions that situate arguers as agents engaged in deciding upon, enacting or revising a common agreement pertaining to provider-supplicant cooperative judgments. At a general level, the norms of reasonable exchange inform all argumentation encounters. However, institutions create rules, embed customs, and enforce constraints that set burdens of proof and rebuttal between provider and client in the interests of establishing best practices to fulfill state of the art goals. The family is the oldest human institution. Families are situated in communities where shared forms of life guide education and politics in ways influenced by kinship. Prudence is acquired informally as a reasonable rule of conduct. Norms of argumentation are learned informally in everyday exchange at home and in the
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community. Modern institutions extend recognized, informal patterns of individual and cooperative reasoning beyond these socially acquired rules and customs of the lifeworld. To argue in an institutional role is to engage in practices that are learned, systematized, and regulated through specialization, training, testing, and development (Powell and DiMaggio 1991). Institutional argument occurs at multiple levels of exchange. In a modern world, cooperative exchange is identified across multiple levels: the micro level of human interaction, the meso level of firms or organizations, and the macro level of refining purposes and ways of operating for a field (Haveman 2000, p. 478). Institutions are symbolic and material structures that offer codes of conduct, regulatory norms, standards of research, programs of co-ordination, and goals for reasonable practice that cross individuals, organizations, and collective enterprises. Communicative argumentation – within institutional boundaries – is reducible neither to interactions which are regulated by conversational norms nor to the obligations of achieving effects on opinion through persuasive address. Rather, what counts as reasonable thinking and valid judgments is grounded in the logic of the institution. According to Simon (1986): The judgment that certain behavior is ‘rational’ or ‘reasonable’ can be reached only by viewing the behavior in the context of a set of premises or ‘givens.’ These givens include the situation in which the behavior takes place, the goals it is aimed at realizing, and the computational means available for determining how the goals can be attained. (p. 210)
The “givens” constitute the guiding rules or norms of an institutional logic. According to Thornton and Ocasio (1999), such logics are “both material and symbolic – they provide the formal and informal rules of action, interaction, and interpretation that guide and constrain decision makers in accomplishing the organization’s tasks and in obtaining social status, credits, penalties, and rewards in the process” (p. 804). The norms guiding an institutional logic explain why arguments in a given discussion are reasonable and should be considered – even though the limits of time, method, and probability do not admit of a certain conclusion. The institutional logics of any given field constitute a mixed-bag of “givens.” Some rules are secured in documents that specify the goals, procedures, and duties of those subscribing to the institution, while others may be picked up by observing the range within which such reasonable activities are conducted. As North (1991) confirms, institutions “consist of both informal constraints (sanctions, taboos, customs, traditions, and codes of conduct), and formal rules (constitutions, laws, property rights)” that develop together over time (p. 97). Actors within firms or organizations that subscribe to an institutional field learn to follow reasonable procedures by drawing from what counts as authoritative
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evidence, tested through valid inference, to reach a reasonable judgment relevant to an institutionally defined question. Institutional actors are trained in state of the art practices by reading cases, studying theory, observing trial and error, developing methods, and addressing cases. According to Suddaby and Greenwood (2005) institutional “logics enable actors to make sense of their ambiguous world by prescribing and proscribing actions. Action reenacts institutional logics, making them durable” (p. 38). Thus, institutional logics provide the grounds to decide, justify, and offer persuasive reasons for decisions within a particular situated case and for adopting a general policy regarding practice. All institutional logics develop over time. The shape and boundaries of modern institutions are influenced by government licensing, regulation, and support as well as market activities. Yet, the standards of cooperative reasoning established by practice are not reducible either to economic exchange or state regulation. Institutions function as (1) centers of authority where particular problems are identified and resolved according to state of the art standards and (2) contingent and fallible social constructions of “best practices” designed to explain, analyze, test and address a specialized subset of individual and social problems. Best practices set the burden of proof, presumption, and loci of decision making between practitioner and client. When serious, risky decisions need to be made, ideally the appropriate processes of reasoning are developed gradually and re-enforced to reach the most desirable outcome under the circumstances. Best practices may fail in a particular case due to the limits of the profession, competence of a practitioner, or the unusual demands of a client. From time to time, however, the very communicative practices of a field themselves may be found to encourage error systematically. Even the most honored standards may be found to miss a problem that should be addressed or to license action when no intervention is warranted. Consequently, the norms of practice may be routinely invoked in taken-for-granted cooperative reasoning between professional and client; or, these norms may become the very center of disagreement and discussion when test cases arise. The regulatory power of an institutional logic depends upon the legitimacy of organizational practices where the make-up of reasonable conversational exchange is set. Suchman (1995) explains: Legitimacy leads to persistence because audiences are most likely to supply resources to organizations that appear desirable, proper, or appropriate…. Indeed, to the extent that legitimacy reflects embeddedness in a system of institutionalized beliefs and actions scripts…legitimate organizations become almost self-replicating, requiring little ongoing investment in collective mobilization. (p. 574)
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Thus, to argue as a doctor, engineer, educator, attorney, musician, penologist, or accountant is to subscribe to a logic embedded in state of the art standards that have evolved over time into best practices. Best practices reflect state of the art application of the resources of a field to problems brought to it by elements of a more general public from which clients are drawn. To the extent the authorities within a field agree upon standards of reasoning in the particular case, a field has legitimacy re-enforced by peer-to-peer consensus. To the extent best practices serve the public well, legitimacy lends trust to the process of reaching judgments in the particular case. As a body, institutionally bounded practices of communicative reasoning are not a perfectly coherent set of deductively ordered, self-evident rules. Over time, all institutions adapt practices to changing environments. Rules specifying reasonable evidence or justified disagreement about a claim to judgment, for example, become altered to accommodate advances in knowledge, new technology, visibility of social needs, availability of talent, the rise of competing institutions, and political interventions by the state. Institutional change may lag behind or advance ahead of the new opportunities and constraints of alterations in the environment in which practice occurs. Not all progress if forward looking. The history of an institution may offer resources for recovery and replace current norms with older goals that are long out of fashion. Alternatively, an institution may borrow norms from an adjacent field to critique the limits of current practice and posit alternative constraints. The penology field, for instance, is well-known to be constructed of at least four institutional logics that have evolved over time: imprisonment is regarded (1) as punishment for an evil where crime is regarded as a sin, (2) as retribution where loss of liberty is compensation for an injury done to a victim, (3) as opportunity for rehabilitation where the incarcerated are trained with the utilitarian goal of transforming the criminal into a useful member of society, and (4) as act that contributes to deterrence when stiff penalties raise the cost to criminal activity. Penology draws its logics from larger epistemological and social categories of moral, ethical, pragmatic, and economic discursive arguments. Institutional goals are shaped in relation to questions of the appropriateness of established options, the success and failures of present practices, and the renewal of past traditions or opening of new alternatives. At times, normative consensus stabilizes a single trajectory as dominant, while taking into account other constraints as best as possible. In the 1960s United States, rehabilitation was a popular logic guiding prisons into the business of social reforms. With Ronald Reagan’s “war on drugs,” rehabilitation appears to have been scrapped in favor of deterrence and simple incarceration. Institutional logics can work together at times as apparently
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self-re-enforcing standards of best practices guiding judgment as to what appears reasonable in the particular case. Goals guiding an institution may be brought into conflict. When institutional norms become controversial, rules of conduct legitimizing decision making and garnering trust become the subject of debate. Innovation and extension of some practices at the expense of others raise questions as to what now constitutes reasonable discussion and competent, informed decision making. Sociologists admit: “We know little, however, about the means by which shifts in logics occur. More specifically, we lack accounts of the process by which the assumptions that define institutional logics are contested and changed” (Suddaby and Greenwood 2005, p. 36). The gap is not unimportant. “The major institutions of society – the market, the state, the corporation, the professions, religion, and the family,” according to Thorton and Ocasio (1999) “provide a distinct set of often contradictory logics and form the bases of political conflicts” (p. 805). The space for such controversy emerges from the positions of provider and client advocacy-related risks embedded in any modern institution.
3.
The practices of advocacy
In modern institutional settings, argumentation is couched paradigmatically in advocacy exchange between a provider and a client. These cooperative arguments constitute the routine and diverse interactions pertaining to serious questions of judgment. We engage in cooperative reasoning with doctors, lawyers, teachers, accountants – all representatives of institutions – who hear our complaints, question the case, give advice, and intervene (or withhold judgment) to bring about state of the art solutions or mitigations of problems. From time to time, we reciprocally engage in professional roles to gather information, hear problems, consult texts, and communication with clients seeking expert guidance, intervention, and reassurance. Modern arguers communicate as teacher and student, doctor and patient, lawyer and client, architect and builder, tax-expert and payer, therapist and counseled, librarian and patron, mechanic and car owner as well as in many other important or routine roles. The requests, advice, discussions, and outcomes are as varied as the versions of modern institutions around the globe permit; however, the reasoning engaged has highly contextualized norms for presumption and burden of proof for co-operative, communicative reasoning inscribed by each institution. Any specialist is trained to think within the models of discovery that translate a client’s description of problems into a problem-solution format. The specialist is part of a practice with field-grounded knowledge certified by studies that specify
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causes and weight alternatives in line with state of the art practices particular to a field. The specialist translates the everyday language of the client into a more precise, ordered, testable language of the institution; the specialist has access to technologies of proof that are assembled to probe the case. He or she is in a position to gather further evidence, evaluate risks, and explain available options in a way that outlines risks and benefits of alternative decisions. Even should a client acquire rudimentary competence of the field, the provider is licensed and embedded in a network and authorized to make restricted resources available – if convinced that access is warranted in the specific case. Further, the specialist has scheduled time available, a network of contacts, and (most crucially) a detached interest that render her duty-bound to advise and judge with a comparatively dispassionate and critical stance. The enthusiasms that drive the expert’s argument, properly constructed, are restricted to those found in solving a puzzle – rightly coming to a conclusion and effectively convincing the client to take actions based in his own best self-interest. The client is in the observe situation. Typically, the power to pose critical questions in technical terms is not a natural strength. The client may have observed a set of disturbances in his everyday world, but he may not know whether the differences in routines are passing or severe; or whether, if severe, remediable or irreparable. The client may have access to informal advice through anecdotes from friends, family, the press, or mass advertising; but, these stories typically follow agendas of the tellers, not the logic of the issue, and remain, in any case, not authoritative. Typically, the technologies of a special field and the risks associated with intervention – even if known in terms of general effects – are not within the scope of expertise of the supplicant; nor, can expert solutions be accessed by a client’s own judgment alone, particularly when state authorities regulate personal decisions and costs associated with decisions are pooled by insurance protocols or state access procedures. The language within which elements of a condition or change in condition is articulated are general terms, pointing toward symptoms, things of notice; perhaps an intuitive judgment of the situation informed by social knowledge can be rendered by a client, but it is up to the expert to break down special intuitions and translate social knowledge into a field of inferences, disciplined by procedure and validated by methodological testing. Most importantly, the client cannot enter the discussion with the same self-detached position as the provider. The client is engaged, in need, and is expending resources to address factors producing a troubling situation. Of course, the provider utilizes resources in the exchange, too, her time and energy, in the hope of gaining either personal reward for an intervention or professional standing, reputation, or competence in practice. Participants in modern, institutionally grounded arguments bare dissimilar risks. Errors affect
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interlocutors to a different degree and in divergent ways. Basically, if an effective solution is foregone or a bad one decided upon, while the provider may lose reputation, the client loses out in a successful or efficient resolution of the problem. In all client-provider conversations, reasons are exchanged. Given the asymmetries of power, sophistication, knowledge, risk and standing, however, it cannot be assumed that the ability to pose objections is equal to the task of testing a decision to a satisfactory conclusion. Put differently, the threshold for critical testing may be lower for the provider who has seen situations like this before; it may be higher for the client whose resources and limited and risks immediate, but who does not have the time, knowledge, or standing to put expert advice to the test. Moreover, objections may be translated by the provider as expressions of reluctance to responsible, rational decision making – which may remove the decision-making power of the objector. In some cases, state interventions for a client who is incapacitated, a spouse for a spouse, a parent for a child in dire cases of emergency. Institutions offset asymmetries of power in order to assure a stable, trusting client-base. Institutions transcend particular individuals or firms by providing a space where the practices of a single provider (or a customary norm of decision making) can be studied, reviewed, and publicized. Ideally, peer review oversees practice and maintains standards. A professional code of practice, establishes a burden of proof in reaching an informed judgment which can be reviewed in the particular case. Additionally, the state may regulate decisions by intervening to set standards, punish exploitation, and create legal partnerships by authorizing and licensing serious practice. From time to time, disputes arise as to whether best practices should be retained or changed. Controversies questioning the norms of practice invite the critical reconstructive work of pragma-dialectics. Questions arise as to whether the norms of decision making binding a speaker and listener, provider and client, are correct. These constraints underwrite communicative obligations and ground burdens of proof and presumptions on both sides of the argument. Critical analysis outlines respective burdens and takes up the issues of change. How are new practices introduced that change what counts as “reasonable”; and, how do such proposals provoke strategic maneuvering leading to contestation? These questions will be illustrated by the controversy over direct to consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical advertising.
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Institutional controversy and strategic maneuvering
The following study takes up the case of strategic maneuvering over the institutional practices of medicine within the United States. The particular question
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concerns how the relationships between doctor and patient should be influenced by equipping patients with greater information and motivation when engaged in discussions over condition and treatment. The analysis begins by laying out the institutional, argument structure of doctor-patient relations; it then moves to show how a major debate across the medical institution pits representatives of pharmaceuticals against doctors over the question as to whether a relatively recent practice, direct-to-consumer advertising, aids or upsets the reasonableness of conversation in relationship between doctor and patient. In the United States, the relationship between a doctor and a patient is regarded presumptively as private, exclusive matter of co-operative exchange. The institution of medicine standardizes procedures and practice by training and certification, provides access to restricted and potentially dangerous materials for patients through licensing doctors, nurses and technicians, and establishes relationships to access through prioritization of cases. Medical treatment depends upon a complicated combination of market forces, risk pooling, and government regulations. Indeed, the old fashioned ideal of the neighborly family doctor has been replaced by the advance of medicine, specialization, and technologies. One’s own doctor may act as a docent or guide into the complicated networks of testing, treatments and specialization that render efficient and reliable medical care. The trust of a patient in a doctor is the contact point where the institution meets its public – even in spite of the complicating concerns of insurance payments and government regulation to access. Within institutional boundaries, a doctor-patient exchange ideally is private, nonjudgmental, and constructive – or at least bounded by the constraint of doing no harm. A patient engages in exposition, the doctor questions and translates the discussion into field-grounded terms; the doctor recasts reasons into terms available to patient understanding and choice; discussion ensues and cooperative choices to act or defer, to prescribe treatment or withhold are enacted. There are two additional connections that bear on the exchange: the doctor’s connections to her profession provides knowledge, review, standards and information that form the context in which state of the art practices decisions are rendered. A patient’s own access to family, friends, publications, and the Web augments his ability to ask questions, pose alternative and question justifications. From a social standpoint, the basic pattern of conversational exchange shapes the information and expectations constituting any particular exchange. Doctor-patient interactions change as medicine, state, and market forces interact. Reduced restrictions on pharmaceutical advertising are justified by what are promised as productive changes for practice. Pharmaceutical companies have long advertised health products. The institutional logic within this sector of health supports activities that promote consumption. Research is expensive, and
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sales not only work wonders they also provide resources to the industry for reinvestment in more research and greater progress. The power of drugs and clinical devices progress to effect new cures to mitigate or cure problems. While the “snake oil salesman” preyed upon human vulnerabilities and hopes at the turn of the twentieth century, the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned open advertising to the public, thereby insuring that doctors would remain the audience for critical judgment. “In 1985, the FDA lifted its moratorium but emphasized that DTC advertisements must meet the same standards of those aimed at professionals” (Calfee 2002, p. 174). Advertising could not meet this standard. So, drug arguments in favor of health care products were limited to praising a company’s overall reputation and reminding publics that help was available generally for given maladies. In 1997, the FDA took off this restriction. While ads must report the risks and benefits of its products in a fair and balanced way, the industry was told that it could “communicate all information relevant to the product’s indication (including limitations to use) in consumer-friendly language” (p. 174). Shortly after this ruling, advertising exploded from $340 million in 1995 to $2.7 billion in 2001 and continued upward for six years. Publication in newspapers, journals, and magazines was accompanied by showers of television commercials (especially during news programs) and the Internet. Day to day, the public can hardly avoid participating in health advertising efforts that sustain and expand a consumer culture that defines health with product use. Drug advertisements promise relief from minor infirmities, supplements for chronic impairments, and pleasantries to make the day go better. Most advertisements are directed at symptom relief such as alleviating problems associated with allergies, menopause, hair loss, erectile dysfunction, and wrinkles – to name a few. The second largest category is associated with medications used to treat diseases such as diabetes, depression, and hypertension. Finally, preventive appeals appear for problems such as osteoporosis, smoking, breast caner and hypercholesterolemia. Whether advertisements provide information in proportion to motivation is a widely debated issue. A study published in the Lancet by Woloshin et al. (2001) found that 87% of advertisements “described the benefit of a medication in vague, qualitative terms. For example, ‘Help your child out of the jungle of allergies’, ‘Naturally, the response has been positive’, and ‘If your diabetes is uncontrolled …Glucophage can help’” (p. 1144). Additionally, the researchers observed personal testimonials and band wagon techniques associating drug popularity with medical desirability. There are differences between drug advertising and selling hot dogs, however. With all the positive news, the FDA requirements – to offer reasonable balance of risks with benefits – are honored, typically in creative
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ways. All advertisements include warnings to consumers of undesirable side-effects. Rather than constructing an argument that integrates support for a claim, advertisements typically separate information and motivation. The warnings of side effects and conditions of use are laid out in scientific language, spoken in a quiet voice, rapidly in a soft, neutral tones. The benefits are shown in colorful, approving, gestures of actors who are leading improved lives, displaying satisfaction, and are basked in the sunshine of social approval by friends, pets, and offscreen narrative voices. Not infrequently the story begins with a sufferer whose face transforms from dark to bright with the intervention of a logo suggesting a medicine be taken. The transformation works simultaneously with the unfolding of the dialectical side of the message which is disconnected from the rhetorical inducements, leaving a puzzle where emotions and reasons are disconnected and at odds. Similarly in magazine ads, warnings are put at the bottom of the page in a box with black and white technical language – while the rest of the advertisement is a colorful pleasure to confidently consume, like the cure itself. These advertising strategies have generated a controversy over the potential effects of new institutional communication norms on the reasonableness of exchange between doctor and patient. Those that justify drug advertising follow the institutional logic of health campaigns. Drug advertising disseminates information, and information alerts and empowers individuals to overcome ignorance or embarrassment, and to seek help thereby improving their well-being. Many consumers agree and are pleased with advertisements that provide new information and empower discussions with doctors (Williams and Hensel 1995; Perri and Dickson 1987). DTC advocates emphasize that these commercials not only provide new information but they also remove “stigma” by raising public awareness of wide-spread health issues little discussed openly or in the media. From a pragma-dialectical perspective, advertisements may be said to intervene by lending patient-interlocutors new resources to create a standpoint, information to support claims, and confidence in critical capacity to question a problem and evaluate alternatives. Advertisement, then, intervenes on behalf of patients to increase the power of individual advocacy by enabling those in need to strengthen “their position as much as possible in all stages of the resolution process” (van Eemeren and Houtlosser 2002, p. 21). The results are not all positive, however. Drug advertising may work to shift the burden of proof and the burden of rebuttal among partners in a health conversation. Traditionally, a doctor is the expert who informs the patient of choices she thinks fitting. Reasons justifying the decision may or may not be presented. When influenced by a campaign, a patient may become convinced by his symptoms amount to a disease named by the ad and thus be motive to secure the remedy. The doctor is put in a position to accept or refute the asserted claim
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which would authorize access to pharmaceuticals. Argument may be engaged at the point where the proposed links between symptoms and ailment are decoupled or where the risks of treatment are explained and alternatives presented, including delay in deciding upon a course of action. Champions of drug advertising claim that in effect the new conditions of argument benefit patients by giving them more power to engage in important discussions, thus putting informed-decision making in the hands of needly supplicants – those who are at greatest risk if a mistake is made. Wyke (2004) notes an additional outcome as well; whatever power to individuals has been accorded, DTC advertisements have “been a superbly successful too for boosting sales” (p. 310). Thus, the strategic maneuvering of the drug industry promotes a justification for changing norms by claiming to enhance reasonableness of practice, even while industry maneuvers through this justification to expanded influence, power and profit. Critics of DTC advertising find that the messages do much less than inform and empower, however. The Women and Health Protection group of Canada “insist that pharma advertising…focuses on promoting new, rather than the best, medicines” (Wyke 2004, p. 311). New medicines have an unproven track record with large populations. The Center for Medical Consumers (2007) reports: Ads are designed to sell a product, not to provide balanced information. That’s why you see so many ads devoted to new, i.e., expensive, “me-too” drugs (think: Celebrex and Vioxx, Prilosec and Nexium, Lipitor and Zocor). That’s why you see little in the way of education – just a few promising words in the headlines like power and strength. (Para 5)
Further, advertising emphasizes purchasing a drug for relief rather than inviting cost-free habits of prevention. The result is that consumers march into a doctor’s office, motivated by inaccurate information, to ask for a product; if turned down, there is evidence that some may doctor-shop until a physician is found who will prescribe (Cohen 1990). Overall, Mansfield and his colleague report that “such advertising does increase awareness of drugs, but its purpose, as with all advertising, is to persuade rather than to inform.” It seems that the stimulation of motivation by overemphasizing the ease, simplicity and positive effects of taking a popular branded product or a new drug, rather than the neutral provision of information. Even ads in medical journals, Villanueva and Librero (2003) explain, do not report effects stipulated in clinical trials, but feature “the promotional statement was not supported by the reference, most frequently because the slogan recommended the drug in a patient group other than that assessed in the study” (p. 27). Television is far less careful. Motivating individuals to self-identity with a certain disease group
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and to purchase and take medicine is at odds with a basic normative injunction of medical practice: do no harm. Debate over the justification for advertising has generated empirical inquiry to determine the truth of the matter. Results are mixed (Harker and Harker 2007). According to the FDA, “72 percent of physicians agreed that DTC advertising increases awareness of possible treatments.” Forty-four percent believe that DTC “facilitates earlier awareness of health conditions” (Aikin et al. 2004, p. 8). On the negative side, nearly half the doctors reported “pressure to prescribe” by patients, and all participants find that advertisements “overstate drug efficacy and do not present a fair balance of benefit and risk information” (pp. 8–9). For good or ill, the arguments made by drug advertisements now play a role in the dialogues between doctors and patients, leaving physicians divided as to the value of DTC initiatives: “40 percent of physicians believe that it has had a positive effect on their patients and practices 30 percent say it has had a negative effect, and 30 percent see no effect at all” (Berndt 2005, p. 325). When there is a substantial impact on institutional practice and disagreement concerning changes of policies that set the communicative make-up of an institution, the result is a legitimation controversy. What are the right rules? Strategic maneuvering within doctor-patient relationship, across medical and pharmaceutical journals has spilled out into the public sphere where competing positions become contested in the legal, institutional, and political battles for influence.
5.
Critical intervention and institutional controversy
The United States and New Zealand remain the only developed nations that permit DTC advertising. Global communications, however, keep the issue very much alive. Canada and the European Union (EU) nations continue to debate “whether to follow the United States’ example” (Calfee, 2002, p. 176). Arguments over the issue are volatile in the case of Canada because many of advertisements cross borders; and as the Internet becomes a circulation network available to the pharmaceutical companies in a variety of new ways, drug advertising may reach a global market, even without specific national or regional approvals. Strategic maneuvering to justify and expand or to oppose and limit these practices spills beyond the sphere of argumentative exchange. In the United States strategic maneuvering over the justification of the practice is now translated into contestation between judicial and legislative bodies, and private companies. Recently, multiple states won a $60 million settlement with Pfizer for false promotion of Celebrex, a COX-2 inhibitor; additionally, the federal House Energy and Commerce Committee has forced Pfizer to pull Lipitor ads featuring Robert Jarvik, the
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inventor of the artificial heart, who appears in television commercials to back use without proper qualifications of his own to make such claims for the product. For its part, the industry has countered pressures for a legislative ban by promising new standards for stricture self-regulation which would provide a greater balance between information and motivation. Even the FDA now provides a training web site for consumers, listing strategies and examples for individuals to distinguish between fallacious and informative advertisements. At stake is how reasonable arguments between doctors and patients over health will be influenced by adds that combine information and motivation in ever creative new ways. Before direct to consumer drug advertising becomes adopted globally, its relationship to structures of communicative argument in health care should be given careful assessment. The United States authorized DTC without undertaking research into whether such advertising would have a positive or negative impact overall on health care. Pre-testing the effects of each add on doctorpatient relationships in relation to its area of health is still not required (Roth, 1996, p. 63). Further, there is still no systematic testing as to whether the overall benefits of an advertising campaign would outweigh the risks due to increased costs of drugs. Imagine a set of studies that would assess the quality of a potential drug advertising campaign by its effects on strategic maneuvering and the burden of proof in a doctor-patient exchange. Recall, that in deciding to advertise a drug, there are competing institutional logics. The public health presumption rests always in favor of dissemination because information is seen to further patient competence and choice. The health care presumption rests with the injunction of the institution for its practitioners to do no harm. This puts presumption against advertising because ads target inexpert audiences. Thus, analysis of this institutional controversy leads to the key question: How can the benefits of dissemination and the safety of competent, dispassionate advice be reconciled reasonably? The adjacent institutional logic of environmental safety offers a direction for resolution. In the United States, a commercial chemical product is released into the environment if there are no proven harms. In Europe, environmentalism follows the precautionary principle. A proponent must first prove that there is no harm to the proposed chemical before the product is released (Harremoes, 2002). This norm strategically shifts the burden of proof to the industry that will reap a profit from its sales. Similarly, for the drug industry, the benefits of information dissemination may be achieved in Europe if advertising is legalized by the European Union. However, to avoid the problems experienced in the United States, the burden of proof needs to be situated carefully. Advertisers should follow the precautionary principle. Before a drug can be advertised, proponents must do studies that demonstrate (1) a reasonable case has been made,
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(2) that the balance of risks and benefits can be understood, (3) that discussions between doctor and patient in the area of medical practice would be helped, rather than adversely effected, by the proposed campaign, and (4) that sales overall would have a positive cost-benefit effect (or least not a negative one) on public health. Further, measures of effectiveness compared to cost should be established for groups benefiting from the information and treatment. Letting the drug industry police its own advertising should not be expected to be effective, given the pressures for strategic maneuvering in the interests of increasing sales. Rather, scholars need to be consulted and evolve reasonable standards for what constitutes sound institutional principles for the profession of health care in the dissemination of information as its related industries adapt to revolutions in medical practice.
References Aikin, K J., Swasy, J. L., & Braman, A. (2004). Patient and physician attitudes and behaviors associated with DTC promotion of prescription drugs: Summary of FDA survey research results. Washington, DC: Food and Drug Administration [Retrieved, January 29, 2008, from http://www.fda.gov/cder/ddmac/Final%20Report/FRFinalExSu1119042.pdf]. Berndt, E. R. (2005). To inform or persuade? Direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs. The New England Journal of Medicine, 352, 325–329. Calfee, J. E. (2002). Public policy issues in direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs. Journal of Policy & Marketing, 21, 174–193. Center for Medical Consumers (2007). Rein in those deceptive drug ads [Retrieved January 29, 2008 from http://www.medicalconsumeres.org/pages/]. Cohen, E. P. (1990). Are pharmaceutical ads good medicine? Business and Society Review, 2, 8–10. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (1999). Strategic manoeuvring in argumentative discourse. Discourse Studies, 1, 479–497. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2002). Strategic maneuvering with the burden of proof. In F. H. van Eemeren (Ed.), Advances in pragma-dialectics (pp. 13–28). New Port News, VA: Vale Press. Eisenstadt, S. N. (1968). Social institutions: The concept. In D. Sills (Ed.), International encyclopedia of the social sciences (Vol 14, pp. 401–420). New York: MacMillan. Harker, M., & Harker, D. (2007). Direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicines: A systematic review of the evidence from the perspective of the consumer. Journal of Medical Marketing, 7, 45–54. Harremoes, P., Gee, D., MacGarvin, M., Stirling, A, Keys, J., Wynne, B., & Guedes, V. S. (Eds.) (2002). The precautionary principle in the twentieth century: Late lessons from early warnings. London: Earthscan. Haveman, H. A. (2000). The future of organizational sociology: Forging ties among paradigms. Contemporary Sociology, 29, 476–486. North, D. C. (1991). Institutions. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 4, 97–112.
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Perri, M., & Dickson, W. M. (1987). Direct to consumer prescription drug advertising: Consumer attitudes and physician reaction. Journal of Pharmaceutical Marketing & Mangement, 2(1), 3–23. Powell, W. W., & DiMaggio, P. J. (Eds.) (1991). The new institutionalism in organizational analysis. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Roth, M. S. (1996). Patterns in direct-to-consumer prescription drug print advertising and their public policy implications. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 15, 63–75. Suchman, M. C. (1995). Managing legitimacy: Strategic and institutional approaches. Academy of Management Review, 20, 571–610. Simon, H. A. (1986). Rationality in psychology and economics. The Journal of Business, 59, S209–S224. Suddaby, R., & Greenwood, T. (2005). Rhetorical strategies of legitimacy. Administrative Science Quarterly, 50, 35–76. Thorton, P. H., & Ocasio, W. (1999). Institutional logics and the historical contingency of power in organizations: Executive succession in the higher education publishing industry, 1958– 1990. The American Journal of Sociology, 105, 801–843. Villanueva, P., & Librero, J. (2003). Accuracy of pharmaceutical advertising in medical journals. The Lancet, 361, 27–31. Williams, J. R., & Hensel, P. J. (1995). Direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs. Journal of Health Care Marketing, 15, 14–41. Woloshin, S., Schwart, L., Tremmel, J., & Welch, H. (2001). Direct-to-consumer advertisements for prescription drugs: What are Americans being sold? The Lancet, 358, 1141–1146. Wyke, A. (2004). Market analysis: Direct-to-consumer (DTC) marketing patient views: DTC advertising. International Journal of Medical Marketing, 4, 310–312.
Strategic manoeuvring in the justification of judicial decisions Eveline T. Feteris
1.
Introduction
Judges often try to present their decision as a self-evident result of the application of the law to the facts of the case. However, the decision is sometimes less self-evident than it is presented. This often occurs in hard cases where the literal application of the rule in the concrete case is problematic. In such cases judges often try to ‘hide’ the fact that there were different decisions possible and try to present the preferred decision as obvious. An example of such a situation is when, although the rule is applicable to the case, the judge makes an exception on the basis of the absurd consequences of application in the concrete case from the perspective of reasonableness and fairness. From the perspective of legal certainty it is important that the judge applies the law as it is formulated by the legislator. This implies that, when making an exception to a rule, he must explain that the exception for the concrete case is in line with the intention of the legislator. In legal practice, when a judge makes an exception he often suggests that the case is not a hard case by presenting the application as unproblematic from the perspective of the intention of the legislator. With regard to this use of the intention of the legislator in the justification of legal decisions one could say that there is a systematic relation between a particular legal dilemma (the apparent necessity to make an exception in a concrete case) and a particular form of strategic manoeuvring (presenting the exception as something that can be considered as a common starting point because the exception can be considered as intended by the legislator). In my paper I will give an analysis of this strategic manoeuvring from a pragma-dialectical perspective by showing how the judge tries to reconcile dialectical and rhetorical aims and I establish to what extent this manoeuvring can be considered as acceptable. I will show how in such a case the judge tries to meet the dialectical reasonableness
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norm by seeing to it that his standpoint is sufficiently defended according to the requirements of the burden of proof of a judge in a rational critical discussion. I will show how he tries at the same time to be rhetorically convincing for the legal audience by presenting the decision as a choice that is in line with the argumentation schemes and starting points that can be considered as accepted by the legal community in the US and by the US community as a whole. First, in 2, I give a short characterization of the task of the judge and the kind of dilemma that a judge is confronted with when he wants to make an exception to a legal rule because of the unacceptable consequences of a literal interpretation. Then, in 3, I give a pragma-dialectical reconstruction of the argumentation that a judge must present to meet his dialectical burden of proof in order to resolve the difference of opinion from a pragma-dialectical as well as a legal perspective. Finally, in 4, I use this reconstruction as a basis for the analysis of an example of the American Supreme Court in which the Court justifies a decision not to apply a rule that is, taken literally, applicable to the concrete case. I explain how the Court manoeuvres strategically by meeting his dialectical obligations without giving up his rhetorical aspirations. I describe how the Court exploits the possibilities given by the dialectical situation in such a way that the discussion is steered in the direction that is most advantageous for his own interests as well as in a direction that is in accordance with the expectations and preferences of the audience.1 In doing so I show how the Court chooses from the topical potential those argumentation schemes and arguments that are the most favourable to justify its own decision from the perspective of its own interests and those of the audience, and how the Court tries to make an effective use of certain presentational devices.
2.
The burden of justification in the context of the application of legal rules and the burden of justification when making an exception to a legal rule
First I shall address the role of the judge in the application of legal rules and his burden of justification when he wants to make an exception to a rule on the basis of unacceptable consequences. On the basis of Montesquieu’s doctrine of the division of powers it is the task of the legislator to formulate the rules of law and it is the task of the judge to apply those rules as the ‘mouthpiece’ of the law. Although according to modern views the judge has more latitude in applying the law than in the traditional view, there are limits to the freedom of the judge to apply and interpret the law. From the perspective of legal certainty, the judge must apply the law in accordance with the literal text of the law and in accordance with the intention of the legislator that can be found in the parliamentary documents. This
Strategic manoeuvring in the justification of judicial decisions
requirement poses a problem in cases in which the meaning of a particular legal rule is clear for the concrete case but the judge nevertheless is of the opinion that in the circumstances of the concrete case an exception should be made to evade an unacceptable result. In such a case there is a tension between the requirement of legal certainty and the requirement of reasonableness and fairness. The judge can resolve this tension by showing that the solution that best meets the requirements of reasonableness and fairness would, although not in accordance with the literal meaning, be in accordance with the intention of the legislator. To show that the exception is intended by the legislator, he can argue that a rational legislator cannot have wanted that a rule would lead to an unacceptable or absurd result. In such a case the judge must show that the exception to the rule has implicitly been intended by the legislator by clarifying that the type of case at hand is not the type of case the rule was intended for by the legislator when he formulated the rule. The judge can do this by explaining that the legal rule was aimed at securing certain goals and values and that for this reason it was the intention of the legislator to evade situations that would hinder the realization of these goals and values. In this way the judge can justify that the legislator would not have wanted a strict application of the rule in situations like the concrete case where application would not be compatible with the goal, so that it is justified to make an exception for the concrete case. From a pragma-dialectical perspective the question rises how a judge can meet his dialectical burden of proof that is consistent with this legal burden of justification ánd how he can manoeuvre strategically by also living up to his rhetorical aspirations to present the decision in such a way that his own interests are served best and that the decision is convincing for the legal audience.
3.
A pragma-dialectical reconstruction of the burden of proof of the judge
To determine what the dialectical burden of proof is, I establish first which obligations a judge must meet from a dialectical perspective. To this end, I translate the legal burden of justification in terms of the burden of proof in a critical discussion. To this end, I establish the burden of proof regarding the choice of the argumentation scheme and the burden of proof regarding the application of the argumentation scheme. The first dialectical obligation is that the judge must defend his standpoint by showing that the argumentation schemes he uses are acceptable from the perspective of the common starting points in a legal context. For argumentation referring to the intention of the legislator this implies that the judge must show that it is
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justified to defend the decision by referring to the undesirable consequences of a broad literal application from the perspective of the goal of the rule and the desirable consequences of a restricted application from the perspective of the goal of the rule. The second dialectical obligation is that the judge must defend his standpoint by showing that the argumentation schemes he uses are applied correctly by putting forward arguments that can be considered acceptable from the perspective of the common starting points in a legal context. With regard to the application of the argumentation scheme, from a pragmadialectical perspective the judge must bring forward argumentation consisting of three levels of subordinate argumentation in which he answers the relevant critical questions that belong to the argumentation scheme concerned.2 The questions form a specific legal implementation of the general questions pertinent to pragmatic argumentation supported by symptomatic argumentation on the basis of the legal requirements for the justification of judicial decisions in hard cases. The argumentation of a judge who claims that strict application of a particular rule would be unacceptable in the concrete case is presented in the context of a mixed dispute. Party A says that rule X must be applied in the strict literal application X’ and party B says that rule X must not be applied because the correct interpretation of the rule is not the literal meaning X’ but X” in which an exception is made in such a way that the rule gets an amended meaning (which implies that the rule is not applicable to the concrete case). From a pragma-dialectical perspective the difference of opinion about the applicability of the rule is based on a mixed difference of opinion about the correct interpretation of the rule. The argumentation of the judge must be reconstructed as a complex main argumentation supporting the complex standpoint that the correct interpretation of rule X is not X’ (the broad literal interpretation) but X’’ (an interpretation with an exception for cases like the concrete case): Standpoint: 1
Rule X must not be interpreted as X’ but as X”
Main argumentation (level I): 1.1a 1.1b 1.1c 1.1d
Application of rule X in interpretation X’ leads to result Y’ Result Y’ is undesirable Application of rule X in interpretation X” leads to result Y” Result Y” is desirable
Strategic manoeuvring in the justification of judicial decisions
This argumentation constitutes in pragma-dialectical terms pragmatic/instrumental argumentation in which the (un)desirability of a particular action is justified by referring to the (un)desirability of the consequences. The use of the pragmatic/instrumental argumentation implies that the judge must give a satisfactory answer to the relevant critical question why result Y’ is undesirable and result Y” desirable. He must give supporting argumentation in which he explains the (un)desirability from a legal perspective. This implies that the judge must give supporting argumentation for 1.1b and 1.1d on level II in which he explains that the (un)desirability of the result depends on the question whether the result is (in)compatible with the goal, the purpose, of the rule: 1.1b 1.1b.1a 1.1b.1b 1.1d 1.1d.1a 1.1d.1b
Result Y’ is undesirable Result Y’ is incompatible with purpose P Purpose P is intended by the legislator/is a rational goal underlying the legal system Result Y” is desirable Result Y” is compatible with purpose P Purpose P is intended by the legislator/is a rational goal underlying the legal system
From a pragma-dialectical perspective this argumentation constitutes symptomatic argumentation in which the (un)desirability of the result is justified by referring to certain characteristics (being compatible with the purpose of the rule as inferred from intention of the legislator). In legal terms this form of argumentation is called teleological argumentation because it is argued that a certain interpretation is desirable because it is coherent with a particular legal goal (telos).3 For a complete justification the arguments 1.1b.1b and1.1d.1b must, in their turn, be justified by answering the critical question why purpose P is intended by the legislator/is underlying the legal system. The judge can do this by referring to certain documents such as the parliamentary documents or by referring to certain other rules, principles and values underlying the legal system in which the purpose is expressed (argumentation level III): 1.1b.1b/ 1.1d.1b 1.1b.1b.1
Purpose P is intended by the legislator/is a rational goal that is underlying the legal system Purpose P can be found in the following documents (...)/purpose P is underlying the following rules, principles and values of the legal system (...)
From a pragma-dialectical perspective the judge must show that the arguments that form part of the complex argumentation reconstructed above are acceptable
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in view of the common legal starting points that are accepted by the legal community of a particular legal system. This implies that when a judge wants to make an exception on the basis of the purposes of the rule as inferred from the intention of the legislator, the judge must justify his choice of arguments based on the intention of the legislator by referring to the formulations of the legislator, parliamentary discussions, etcetera, which can be considered as common starting points in a particular legal community for establishing the intention of the legislator. When a judge meets his dialectical burden of proof and makes use of argumentation schemes and arguments that belong to the common starting points, his justification can be considered as acceptable from the dialectical perspective. For the analysis of strategic manoeuvring the central question is how a judge, whose justification is acceptable from the dialectical perspective, can manoeuvre strategically by making a selection from the topical potential of the argumentation schemes and arguments that can be considered as common starting points that also serve his rhetorical goals.
4.
An analysis of the strategic manoeuvring of the US Supreme Court in the case of the Holy Trinity Church
4.1
The case of the Holy Trinity Church
The case that I will use as an example is a decision by the US Supreme Court in the famous case of the Holy Trinity Church v. US (143 U.S. 457) of February 29, 1892. The Court was called upon to decide whether or not the act prohibiting the importation of foreigners and aliens under contract to perform labour in the United States (Chapter 164, 23 St. p. 332) applied to an English Christian minister who had come to the United States to enter into the service of the Protestant Episcopal Holy Trinity Church in the city of New York as rector and pastor. According to the United States and the circuit judge the church was in error because the contract was forbidden by Chapter 164, 23 St. p. 332 according to which it is unlawful for any person to assist or encourage in any way the importation or migration of any alien or foreigner into the United States to perform labour or service of any kind. The opinion of the Supreme Court, delivered by justice Brewer, however, is that this immigration statute should, in the concrete case, not be applied to the act of the church, although the act is within the letter of this section. In his view application in the broad strict literal meaning would have an absurd result because it would be contrary to the spirit of the statute and the intention of the legislature.
Strategic manoeuvring in the justification of judicial decisions
He argues that the congress never had in mind any purpose of prohibiting ‘the coming into the U.S. of ministers of the gospel’. He maintains that the meaning of a statute can be found in the evil which it is designed to remedy, in this case the practice of large capitalists who contracted their agents abroad for the shipment of great numbers of ‘an ignorant and servile class of foreign labourers’ under contracts by which the employer agreed to prepay their passage and the labourers agreed to work after their arrival for a certain time at a low rate of wages. This did obviously not apply to the minister. This decision is interesting for our purposes because it forms a clear example of how a judge (in this case justice Brewer) manoeuvres strategically in arguing that a literal application of a rule would be incompatible with certain central values of U.S. society.
4.2 An analysis of the justification from the perspective of the pragma-dialectical burden of proof The first question to be answered is whether the Supreme Court has met its pragma-dialectical burden of proof. To this end, first, in 4.2.1, I examine to what extent the judge lives up to his dialectical obligations regarding the choice of the argumentation scheme. Then, in 4.2.2, I examine to what extent the judge lives up to his dialectical obligations regarding the application of the argumentation scheme in the concrete case and to what extent the judge lives up to his dialectical obligations regarding the use of commonly accepted starting points.
4.2.1 The justification of the choice of the argumentation scheme From the perspective of the justification of the choice of the argumentation scheme, the question is how the argumentation of judge Brewer can be reconstructed as a justification of the choice to depart from the literal meaning and to refer to the consequences of application in relation to the intention of the legislator. In the first part of the argumentation, the Court tries to justify the use of the argumentation scheme by saying that it is legitimate in American criminal law to establish the meaning of a rule by referring to the purpose of the statute. As a justification the Court cites several precedents. Pragma-dialectically speaking the Court justifies the use of teleological argumentation (in pragma-dialectical terms a specific form of symptomatic argumentation) as an adequate means for justifying the interpretation of the legal rule. This justification can be analysed as follows:
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1.
We cannot think congress intended to denounce with penalties a transaction like that in the present case.
1.1 It is a familiar rule that a thing may be within the letter of the statute and yet not within the statute, because not within its spirit nor within the intention of the makers. 1.1.1
This has often been asserted, and the Reports are full of cases illustrating its application. This is not the substitution of the will of the judge for that of the legislator; for frequently words of general meaning are used in a statute, words broad enough to include an act in question, and yet a consideration of the whole legislation, or of the circumstances surrounding its enactment, or of the absurd results which follow from giving such broad meaning to the words, makes it unreasonable to believe that the legislator intended to include the particular act.
1.1.1.1 Citations of precedents
From a dialectical perspective the argumentation in support of the use of teleological argumentation referring to the goal of the rule as inferred from the intention of the legislator seems to meet the dialectical obligation since the judge puts forward three levels of argumentation to support the adequacy of the argumentation scheme for justifying the interpretation and refers to common starting points regarding the acceptability of the argumentation scheme.
4.2.2 The justification of the application of the argumentation scheme in the concrete case Regarding the justification of the application of the argumentation scheme in the concrete case the first question is which parts of the decision constitute the complex argumentation justifying the preferred application X”. A summary of the three main arguments supporting the intention of the legislator (1.1d.1b) can be found at the end of the first part of the justification: ‘We find, therefore, that the title of the act, the evil which was intended to be remedied, the circumstances surrounding the appeal to congress, the reports of the committee of each house, all concur in affirming that the intent of congress was simply to stay the influx of this cheap, unskilled labor’. The first part of the justification can be reconstructed as follows on the basis of the model for the dialectical burden of proof developed in Section 3 regarding the main argumentation:
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1.
Rule X must not be interpreted as X’ , implying that the rule applies to all foreigners who perform labour, but in interpretation X”, implying that the rule does not apply to foreigners who perform labour as ministers of the gospel
1.1a 1.1b 1.1c 1.1d
Application of rule X in interpretation X’ would have result Y’, that ministers of the gospel would not be allowed to come to the US Result Y’ is undesirable Application of rule X in interpretation X” would have result Y”, that ministers of the gospel will be allowed to come to the US Result Y” is desirable
The subordinate argumentation can be analysed as follows: 1.1b Result Y’ is undesirable 1.1b.1a Result Y’ would be contrary to the spirit of the statute and the intention of the legislature P, implying that the purpose of the rule was to prevent large capitalists from shipping great numbers of ignorant and servile foreign laborers to the US who agreed to work after their arrival for a certain time at a low rate of wages 1.1b.1b Purpose P is intended by the historical legislator 1.1b.1c Whatever of light is thrown upon the statute by the language of the title indicates an exclusion from its penal provisions of all contracts for the employment of ministers, rectors, and pastors. (page 4) 1.1b.1c.1a Obviously the thought expressed in this reaches only to the work of the manual laborer, as distinguished from the pro fessional man 1.1b.1c.1b No one reading such a title would suppose that congress had in mind any purpose of staying the coming into this coun try of ministers of the gospel, or, indeed, of any class whose toil is that of the brain 1.1b.1c.1c The common understanding of the terms ‘labor’ and ‘labor ers’ does not include preaching and preachers 1.1d Result Y” is desirable 1.1d.1a Result Y” is compatible with purpose or goal P 1.1d.1b Purpose P is intended by the historical legislator 1.1b.1b.1a It appears from the circumstances surrounding the appeal to congress, the reports of the committee of each house that it was this cheap, unskilled labor which was making the trouble, and the influx of which the congress sought to prevent which constituted the evil the statute was designed to remedy. It was never suggested that we had in this country a surplus of
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brain toilers, and, least of all, that the market for the services of Christian ministers was depressed by foreign competition 1.1b.1b.1a.1 Reference to the contemporaneous events, the situation as it existed, and as it was pressed upon the attention of the legislative body, and citations from precedents
Regarding the obligation to give a complex main argumentation to defend the given interpretation it can be said that in the second part of the argumentation the Court gives the argumentation that forms the rationale of the decision. The Court lives up to the dialectical obligation although certain parts of the argumentation remain implicit. The Court leaves a large part of the complex argumentation implicit because it only puts forward argumentation in support of the undesirability of a broad interpretation by means of argument 1.1a, 1.1b, 1.1b.1a, 1.1b.1b etcetera. However, the parts that remain implicit can be made explicit without much problems as I have shown in the analysis. The analysis given above shows that the Court tries to meet the requirement that the justification must consist of three levels of subordinate argumentation in which the judge answers the relevant critical questions. The last question to be answered is whether the Court meets the obligation to make use of arguments that belong to the common starting points. For U.S. law these starting points are, according to Summers (1991: 412–415), the argument from ordinary or technical meaning, the argument from the meaning indicated by contextual-harmonization, the argument from precedent, the argument from congruence with relevant and authoritative public policy operative within the field in which the statute falls, the argument from the ultimate purpose of the statute, the argument from legislative intention. This intention may be the subjective intention of real legislators as it appears from the legislative history which may range from committee reports to floor debates, or the objective intention that can be inferred from the fact that the legislator used a particular word such as ‘labour’ in a generic way to include Christian ministers or in a more restricted way that would exclude them). In this case, the Court explicitly states the common starting points on which it bases its decision. Brewer summarizes these starting points as ‘the title of the act, the evil which was intended to be remedied, the circumstances surrounding the appeal to congress, the reports of the committee of each house’. As we have seen in the analysis, the Court also uses a lot of citations from precedents to support the correctness of these starting points for the concrete case. In this way the Court tries to meet the requirement that an interpretation must be supported by citing a precedent.
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On the basis of this evaluation it can be stated that the argumentation of the Supreme Court can be considered as acceptable from the perspective of the pragmadialectical burden of proof because the Court meets is dialectical burden of proof regarding the choice of the argumentation scheme and the application in the concrete case and makes use of common starting points.
4.3 An analysis of the justification from the perspective of strategic manoeuvring The next step is to establish whether the justification that meets the standards of the pragma-dialectical burden of proof is also acceptable from the perspective of strategic manoeuvring. I will examine how the Supreme Court manoeuvres strategically regarding the three aspects distinguished by van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2002a and 2002b): how the Court selects material that suits them best, how the Court develops the perspective most agreeable to the audience and how the Court presents its contributions in the most effective way by exploiting the appropriate presentational devices. Often the strategic manoeuvring consists in a combination of a strategic use of the three aspects in an integrated way.
4.3.1 The justification of the choice of the argumentation scheme First the Court explains why the interpretation of the rule in the concrete case fits within a tradition of interpretation in the U.S., thus clarifying that an interpretation based on the purpose of the rule as intended by the legislator is a legitimate form of interpretation that fits within the tradition of American law. In 4.2 I have described the possible forms of argument that the Court can use. From this topical potential of acceptable forms of argumentation the Court chooses that form of argumentation that best fits their aims: argumentation based referring to unacceptable consequences with reference to the intention of the legislator. The argument referring to the absurd consequences of a broad interpretation from the perspective of the intention of the legislator is a very strong argument because it combines an effective rhetorical strategy in the argumentation stage to spell out desirable or undesirable consequences that are supposed to immediately convince the audience in combination with a reference to the intention of the legislator that is supposed to belong to a common starting point that will gain immediate adherence from a legal audience.4 The dilemma the Court is confronted with is that it must give a decision on the basis of a weighing of two possible interpretations, between a literal broad interpretation that it wants to reject and a narrow interpretation on the basis of the purpose of the rule that it favours. To hide this weighing as much as possible and
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to give the impression that the decision is based on an unproblematic self-evident choice, the Court tries to present its own interpretation as obvious by using various rhetorical techniques. First, to present the preferred interpretation as rhetorically strong, the Court anticipates possible doubt and counter-arguments with respect to this interpretation by giving various arguments in which it tries to take away different forms of doubt and by rejecting counter-arguments. This rhetorical strategy of prolepsis in combination with certain presentational devices is intended at convincing the audience of the weak position of the circuit judge and the strong position of the decision of the Supreme Court itself.5 The Court first anticipates possible doubt that it would be problematic to refer to the intention of the legislator and the purpose of the rule to establish the meaning of a legal rule. To refute this doubt, the Court refers to relevant legal provisions in which it is said that to establish the meaning of a rule it is allowed to consult the intention of the legislator. Formulations such as ‘It is a familiar rule.....’, ‘This has often been asserted, and the reports are full of cases illustrating its application’ must suggest that the choice for this form of argumentation must be considered as a form of argumentation that can be considered as accepted in the American legal system and that this does not need further proof.6 Then the Court anticipates a counter-argument, i.e. that it would not be allowed to substitute the will of the judge for that of the legislator, and rejects this counter-argument with the following formulation: ‘This is not the substitution of the will of the judge for that of the legislator; for frequently words of general meaning are used in a statute, words broad enough to include an act in question, and yet a consideration of the whole legislation, or of the circumstances surrounding its enactment, or of the absurd results which follow from giving such broad meaning to the words, makes it unreasonable to believe that the legislator intended to include the particular act’. It chooses to use this rhetorically strong strategy to mention a counter-argument that it then rejects. Furthermore the Court tries to reinforce its argumentation by giving an excessive amount of citations from precedents to justify the fact that it is allowed to use the purpose of the rule to establish the meaning: it gives many citations from precedents (which can be considered as an acceptable way of justifying a legal decision) from which it must become evident that argumentation on the basis of the purpose of the rule is a legitimate justification of the interpretation of a legal rule. This can also be considered as a way of anticipating and taking away possible doubt with respect to the legitimacy of the use of argumentation based on the purpose of the rule.
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The Court tries to give the audience the impression that there is a preponderance of weight on its side by trying to ‘neutralize’ the position of the circuit judge by giving it hardly or no attention. The only thing said about the decision of the Circuit judge is the formulation ‘While there is great force to this reasoning’, while the following 8 pages of the decision are dedicated to the justification of the chosen narrow interpretation of the rule. On the basis of this analysis it can be said that the justification of the choice of the argumentation scheme is strong from the perspective of strategic manoeuvring: the Supreme Court anticipates doubt and possible counter-arguments and tries to take away the doubt and rejects the counter-argument. The Court tries to justify its decision by showing that the arguments for its own interpretation are stronger than those of the circuit court because they are all based on starting points accepted by the legal audience and does this by dedicating only one sentence to the decision by the circuit judge and the other pages to the arguments in favour of its own decision. In this way the presentational techniques reinforce the weight to be attached on the basis of the argumentation.
4.3.2 The justification of the application of the argumentation scheme in the concrete case In Section 4.2.2 we have seen how the Supreme Court justifies the application of the argumentation scheme in the concrete case by explaining why it is justified to make an exception to the rule by giving a narrow interpretation based on the intention of the legislator and we have seen which common starting points are used in the justification. The question now to be answered is whether the choice of arguments that are based on common starting points is rhetorically strong in relation to the interests of the speaker and the assumed value hierarchies of the audience. In its choice and presentation of the arguments used to support the interpretation the Supreme Court chooses a strategy that is rhetorically strong in a legal context: the Court uses citations from famous precedents in which a similar line of argumentation is followed and from texts surrounding the enactment of the statute that are advantageous in justifying the preferred interpretation (and by leaving out information that could be unfavourable). The core of the argumentation that must support the exception to the rule is the argument 1.1b that the result Y’, that the ministers of the gospel would not be allowed to come to the US, would be absurd and that the legislator could not have intended this result because it would be contrary to the spirit of the statute and the intention of the legislature.
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The Court first explains the intention of the legislature by referring to the words used in the first section of the act and by concluding that on the basis of the words it is justified to make an exception for a Christian minister because the legislator has intended it: ‘So whatever of light is thrown upon the statute by the language of the title indicates an exclusion from its penal provisions of all contracts for the employment of ministers, rectors and pastors’. As a support the Court uses citations from earlier decisions to justify its interpretation. In its choice of presentational devices the Court chooses formulations such as ‘obviously’, ‘no one reading such a title would suppose’, ‘the common understanding of (...) does not include’ that must suggest that it concerns an obvious unproblematic interpretation. This rhetorical strategy of stressing the absurd consequences is strong because the Court has chosen that argument from the topical potential that would be most likely to find adherence from the American audience that would like to protect its Christian culture.7 In its conclusion the Court stresses that all these sources, ‘the title of the act, the evil which was intended to be remedied, the circumstances surrounding the appeal to congress, the reports of the committee of each house concur in affirming that the intent of congress was simply to stay the influx of cheap, unskilled labor’. In this way the Court, by using the expression ‘simply’, and by pointing at the fact that all considerations and sources point into the same direction tries to suggest that its own interpretation is self-evident and is the only right interpretation. Apart from the foregoing part of the justification that constitutes the ‘ratio decidendi’, the argumentation of the Supreme Court also contains an ‘obiter dictum’ that contains argumentation that does not function as a precedent for future cases, but forms an extra support for the decision. This part of the justification starts with ‘But beyond all these matters, no purpose of action against religion can be imputed to any legislation, state or national, because it is a religious people’ where the Court argues that the congress can never have had the intention to prevent christian ministers from entering the U.S. because it is a Christian nation. From a legal perspective this argumentation can never function as a support of the decision because it does not relate to the legal aspect of the case and to the question what the goal of the statute was in the concrete case, that is preventing the influx of unskilled foreign labourers who formed a threat to the American labourers. From a dialectical perspective the argumentation is not necessary from the perspective of the burden of proof of the court. It can be reconstructed dialectically as additional argumentation that anticipates a particular form of doubt, e.g. doubt with respect to the acceptability of the decision from a religious or moral perspective. From a legal perspective this argumentation is not necessary
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but it can be reconstructed from a dialectical perspective as argumentation that tries to take away possible doubt with respect to the religious or moral basis of the decision. From a rhetorical perspective it has a function as a reinforcement of the interpretation of the intention of the legislator. With this argumentation justice Brewer tries to supplement the legal justification with a ‘moral’ view on the starting points of American society as they are expressed, in his opinion, in the American history and the American legislation. With these considerations ‘obiter dictum’ justice Brewer tries to gain the rhetorical advantage that the doubt that might remain after the justification from the legal-historical perspective can be taken away by showing that it would be absurd to think that the legislator would have had the intention to prevent a Christian minister from entering the U.S. In order to do this, Brewer tries to make a link with common starting points about the christian nature of American society. To this end Brewer gives a lot of references to historical documents (the Charters of the first states of the U.S., the Declaration of independence, the present constitutions of the various states, the practice of the oath followed by the formula ‘so help me God’, the First Amendment) that all must show that the U.S. are a Christian nation. Finally he concludes ‘These and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation. In the face of all these, shall it be believed that a congress of the United states intended to make it a misdemeanor for a church of this country to contract for the services of a Christian minister residing in another nation?’ Brewer chooses from the topical potential those arguments that must show in a convincing way that the U.S. are a Christian nation and that the legislator can therefore not have had the intention to act in a contrary way. With this argumentation resulting in the final rhetorical question ‘In the face of all these, shall it be believed that a congress of the United States intended to make it a misdemeanour for a church of this country to contract for the services of a Christian minister residing in another nation? the Supreme Court addresses in the person of judge Brewer the whole American nation, the audience of the Court when it gives a decision. The Supreme Court develops a rhetorical strategy that consists of a combination of rhetorically strong elements: a strong selection of starting points from the topical potential that allow it to develop a perspective that is agreeable to the audience, that is advantageous for its own decision and a strong exploitation of presentational devices. As van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2002a: 141) stress, the three aspects of strategic manoeuvring usually work together. In the analysis I have shown how the selection and application of the argumentation schemes that prove to be most favourable to justify the decision of the Supreme Court is
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resented and how the Court thus tries to present its own choice as the obvious p choice to be made, thus pushing other choices and considerations to the background and making them less acceptable.
5.
Strategic manoeuvring in the justification of judicial decisions
I have shown how a judge can manoeuvre strategically when trying to justify a decision in which he departs from the literal meaning of a rule and makes an exception for the concrete case on the basis of the purpose of the rule as inferred from the intention of the legislator. I have shown how the judge can operate in such a way that the dialectical and rhetorical goals are reconciled with the aim of securing that the argumentation is dialectically sound and rhetorically convincing. Starting from the legal burden of justification for a judge who wants to make an exception to a rule, I have specified the requirements a judge must meet in his dialectical burden of proof. In doing so, I have made a distinction between the argumentation put forward as a justification for the choice of the argumentation scheme and the argumentation put forward as a justification for the application of the argumentation scheme in the concrete case. On the basis of the reconstruction of the dialectical burden of proof and the space to manoeuvre strategically I have analysed and evaluated the argumentation in a particular legal case, the famous Holy Trinity case. I have demonstrated how a judge can try to live up to the dialectical norm of reasonableness by putting forward argumentation that meets the requirements of the dialectical burden of proof. I have also shown how the judge can at the same time operate rhetorically by making particular choices from the topical potential, by adapting the choices regarding the argumentation scheme and the arguments to the audience, and by using certain rhetorical devices with the aim of also attaining his rhetorical goals. The analysis of the way in which a judge tries to be dialectically reasonable and rhetorically convincing shows how a judge can manoeuvre strategically in the application of legal rules by presenting his own decision as unproblematic and as the only justified decision. I have explained how, from a pragma-dialectical perspective, it can be clarified to what extent a judge gives a contribution to a legal discussion that is dialectically and rhetorically acceptable.
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Abbreviated version of the decision of the Supreme Court in the Holy Trinity case The complete version can be found on http://supreme.justitia.com/us/143/457/case.html THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT HOLY TRINITY CHURCH v. U.S. 143 U.S. 457, 12 S.Ct. 511, 36 L.Ed. 226 Feb. 29, 1892 Opinion Mr. Justice BREWER delivered the opinion of the court. Plaintiff in error is a corporation duly organized and incorporated as a religious society under the laws of the state of New York. E. Walpole Warren was, prior to September, [143 U.S. 457, 458] 1887, an alien residing in England. In that month the plaintiff in error made a contract with him, by which he was to remove to the city of New York, and enter into its service as rector and pastor; and, in pursuance of such contract, Warren did so remove and enter upon such service. It is claimed by the United States that this contract on the part of the plaintiff in error was forbidden by chapter 164, 23 St. p. 332; and an action was commenced to recover the penalty prescribed by that act. The circuit court held that the contract was within the prohibition of the statute, and rendered judgment accordingly, (36 Fed. Rep. 303,) and the single question presented for our determination is whether it erred in that conclusion. The first section describes the act forbidden, and is in these words: ‘Be it enacted by the senate and house of representatives of the United States of America, in congress assembled, that from and after the passage of this act it shall be unlawful for any person, company, partnership, or corporation, in any manner whatsoever, to prepay the transportation, or in any way assist or encourage the importation or migration, of any alien or aliens, any foreigner or foreigners, into the United States, its territories, or the District of Columbia, under contract or agreement, parol or special, express or implied, made previous to the inportation or migration of such alien or aliens, foreigner or foreigners, to perform labor or service of any kind in the United States, its territories, or the District of Columbia.’ It must be conceded that the act of the corporation is within the letter of this section, for the relation of rector to his church is one of service, and implies
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labor on the one side with compensation on the other. Not only are the general words ‘labor’ and ‘service’ both used, but also, as it [*512] were to guard against any narrow interpretation and emphasize a breadth of meaning, to them is added ‘of any kind;’ and, further, as noticed by the circuit judge in his opinion, the fifth section, which makes specific exceptions, among them professional actors, artists, lecturers, singers, and domestic [143 U.S. 457, 459] servants, strengthens the idea that every other kind of labor and service was intended to be reached by the first section. While there is great force to this reasoning, we cannot think congress intended to denounce with penalties a transaction like that in the present case. It is a familiar rule that a thing may be within the letter of the statute and yet not within the statute, because not within its spirit nor within the intention of its makers. This has been often asserted, and the Reports are full of cases illustrating its application. This is not the substitution of the will of the judge for that of the legislator; for frequently words of general meaning are used in a statute, words broad enough to include an act in question, and yet a consideration of the whole legislation, or of the circumstances surrounding its enactment, or of the absurd results which follow from giving such broad meaning to the words, makes it unreasonable to believe that the legislator intended to include the particular act. (...) General terms should be so limited in their application as not to lead to injustice, oppression, or an absurd consequence. It will always, therefore, be presumed that the legislature intended exceptions to its language which would avoid results of this character. The reason of the law in such cases should prevail over its letter. The common sense of man approves the judgment mentioned by Puffendorf, that the Bolognian law which enacted ‘that whoever drew blood in the streets should be punished with the utmost severity,’ did not extend to the surgeon who opened the vein of a person that fell down in the street in a fit. (...) [143 U.S. 457, 463] It will be seen that words as general as those used in the first section of this act were by that decision limited, and the intent of congress with respect to the act was gathered partially, at least, from its title. Now, the title of this act is, ‘An act to prohibit the importation and migration of foreigners and aliens under contract or agreement to perform labor in the United States, its territories, and the District of Columbia. Obviously the thought expressed in this reaches only to the work of the manual laborer, as distinguished from that of the professional man. No one reading such a title would suppose that congress had in its mind any purpose of staying the coming into this country of ministers of the gospel, or, indeed, of any class whose toil is that of the brain. The common understanding of the terms ‘labor’ and ‘laborers’ does not include preaching and
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preachers, and it is to be assumed that words and phrases are used in their ordinary meaning. So whatever of light is thrown upon the statute by the language of the title indicates an exclusion from its penal provisions of all contracts for the employment of ministers, rectors, and pastors. Again, another guide to the meaning of a statute is found in the evil which it is designed to remedy; and for this the court properly looks at contemporaneous events, the situation as it existed, and as it was pressed upon the attention of the legislative body. U. S. v. Railroad Co., 91 U. S. 72, 79. The situation which called for this statute was briefly but fully stated by Mr. Justice BROWN when, as district judge, he decided the case of U. S. v. Craig, 28 Fed. Rep. 795, 798: ‘The motives and history of the act are matters of common knowledge. It had become the practice for large capitalists in this country to contract with their agents abroad for the shipment of great numbers of an ignorant and servile class of foreign laborers, under contracts by which the employer agreed, upon the one hand, to prepay their passage, while, upon the other hand, the laborers agreed to work after their arrival for a certain time at a low rate of wages. The effect of this was to break down the labor market, and to reduce other laborers engaged in like occupations to the level [143 U.S. 457, 464] of the assisted immigrant. The evil finally became so flagrant that an appeal was made to congress for relief by the passage of the act in question, the design of which was to raise the standard of foreign immigrants, and to discountenance the migration of those who had not sufficient means in their own hands, or those of their friends, to pay their passage.’ It appears, also, from the petitions, and in the testimony presented before the committees of congress, that it was this cheap, unskilled labor which was making the trouble, and the influx of which congress sought to prevent. It was never suggested that we had in this country a surplus of brain toilers, and, least of all, that the market for the services of Christian ministers was depressed by foreign competition. Those were matters to which the attention of congress, or of the people, was not directed. So far, then, as the evil which [*514] was sought to be remedied interprets the statute, it also guides to an exclusion of this contract from the penalties of the act. (...) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------We find, therefore, that the title of the act, the evil which was intended to be remedied, the circumstances surrounding the appeal to congress, the reports of the committee of each house, all concur in affirming that the intent of congress was simply to stay the influx of this cheap, unskilled labor. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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But, beyond all these matters, no purpose of action against religion can be imputed to any legislation, state or national, because this is a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation. The commission to Christopher Columbus, prior to his sail westward, is from “Ferdinand and Isabella, by the grace of God, king and queen of Castile,” etc., and recites that “it is hoped that by God’s assistance some of the continents and islands in the [496] ocean will be discovered,” etc. The first colonial grant, that made to Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584, was from “Elizabeth, by the grace of God, of England, Frauce, and Ireland, queene, defender of the faith,” etc.; and the grant authorizing him to enact statutes of the government of the proposed colony provided that “they be not against the true Christian faith nowe professed in the Church of England.” The first charter of Virginia, granted by King James I. in 1606, after reciting the application of certain parties for a charter, commenced the grant in these words: “We, greatly commending, and graciously accepting of, their Desires for the Furtherance of so noble a Work, which may, by the Providence of Almighty God, hereafter tend to the Glory of His Divine Majesty, in propagating of Christian Religion to such People, as yet live in Darkness and miserable Ignorance of the true Knowledge and Worship of God, and may in time bring the Infidels and Savages, living in those parts, to human Civility, and to a settled and quiet Government; DO, by these our Letters‑Patents, graciously accept of, and agree to, their humble and well‑intentioned Desires.” (...) There is no dissonance in these declarations. There is a universal language pervading them all, having one meaning. They affirm and reaffirm that this is a religious nation. These are not individual sayings, declarations of private persons. They are organic utterances. They speak the voice of the entire people. While because of a general recognition of this truth the question has seldom been presented to the courts, yet we find that in Updegraph v. Comm., 11 Serg. & R. 394, 400, it was decided that, “Christianity, general Christianity, is, and always has been, a part of the common law of Pennsylvania; * * * not Christianity with an established church and tithes and spiritual courts, but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men.” (...) If we pass beyond these matters to a view of American life, as expressed by its laws, its business, its customs, and its society, we find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth. Among other matters note the following: The form of oath universally prevailing, concluding with an appeal to the Almighty; the custom of opening sessions of all deliberative bodies and most conventions with
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prayer; the prefatory words of all wills, “In the name of God, amen;” the laws respecting the observance of the Sabbath, with the general cessation of all secular business, and the closing of courts, legislatures, and other similar public assemblies on that day; the churches and church organizations which abound in every city, town, and hamlet; the multitude of charitable organizations existing everywhere under Christian auspices; the gigantic missionary associations, with general support, and aiming to establish Christian missions in every quarter of the globe. These and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation. In the face of all these, shall it be believed that a congress of the United States intended to make it a misdemeanor for a church of this country to contract for the services of a Christian minister residing in another nation? (...) The judgment will be reversed, and the case remanded for further proceedings in accordance with the opinion.
References Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2002a). Strategic maneuvering: maintaining a delicate balance. In F. H. van Eemeren & P. Houtlosser (Eds.), Dialectic and rhetoric. The warp and woof of argumentation analysis (pp. 131–160). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2002b). Strategic maneuvering with the burden of proof. In F. H. van Eemeren (Ed.), Advances in pragma-dialectics (pp. 13–28). Amsterdam: Sic Sat. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2003). A pragmatic view of the burden of proof. In F. H. van Eemeren, J. A. Blair, Ch.A. Willard & A. F. Snoeck Henkemans (Eds.), Anyone who has a view. Theoretical contributions to the study of argumentation (pp. 123–132). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2006). Flexible facts: A pragma-dialectical analysis of a burden of proof manipulation. In F H. van Eemeren a.o. (eds.), Contemporary perspectives on argumentation. Views from the Venice argumentation conference. Amsterdam: Sic Sat., pp. 37–46. Feteris, E. T. (2002). A pragma-dialectical approach of the analysis and evaluation of pragmatic argumentation in a legal context. Argumentation, 16(3), 349–367. Feteris, E. T. (2005). The rational reconstruction of argumentation referring to consequences and purposes in the application of legal rules: A pragma-dialectical perspective. Argumentation, 19(4), 459–470. MacCormick, N. (2005). Rhetoric and the rule of law. A theory of legal reasoning. Oxford: Oxford University Press. O’Keefe, D. J. (2002). Persuasion. Theory and research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
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O’Keefe, D. (2003). The potential conflict between normatively-good argumentative practice and persuasive success: Evidence from persuasion effects research. In F. H. van Eemeren, J. A. Blair, C. A. Willard & A. F. Snoeck Henkemans (Eds.), Anyone who has a view: Theoretical contributions to the study of argumentation (pp. 309–318). Amsterdam: Kluwer. Summers, R. S. (1991). Statutary interpretation in the United States. In N. MacCormick & R. S. Summers (Eds.), Interpreting statutes (pp. 407–460). Aldershot: Dartmouth. US Supreme Court (1892). Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 U.S. 457 [Retrieved from http://supreme.justia.com/us/143/457/case.html].
Notes 1. See van Eemeren and Houtlosser 2002a: 135. 2. See Feteris 2005. 3. In Feteris (2005) I explain that in legal decisions teleological argumentation is always based on a complex argumentation in which it is claimed that application of a rule is (un)desirable because it would lead to consequences that can be considered as (un)desirable from the perspective of the goal of the rule. Often reference to the consequences remains implicit but for the evaluation it is important that the intermediate step explicit. 4. See van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2002b: 24–25). Cf. MacCormick (2005: 199) who contends that is the rhetoric of a justification referring to the intention of the legislator to argue that a legislator is supposed to legislate coherently and that he cannot have intended that application of a rule would lead to consequences that would be unacceptable from the perspective of the goal of the rule. 5. See O’Keefe (2002, 2003) who considers the technique of anticipating or reacting to counter-arguments as a persuasively effective strategy. See also van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2002b: 24–25) who characterize the technique of anticipating or reacting to opposition by concentrating on the most serious objections that would refute the protagonist’s position as a constructive way of strategic manoeuvring. 6. Cf. van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2006) who claim that the use of epistemic modal expressions such as ‘probably’ and ‘perhaps’ must suggest that a starting point can be considered as objective and therefore as generally accepted. 7. Cf. van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2002a: 141) who contend that one of the rhetorical strategies in the argumentation stage is the strategy of spellling out desirable-or undesirable-consequences that are supposed to immediately convince-or intimidate- the opponent.
Strategic maneuvering in political argumentation David Zarefsky
1.
Introduction to political argumentation
On the face of it, it may seem strange to include political argumentation within the scope of institutionalized contexts. Normally we think of institutions as formal structures of decision-making, bound by accepted procedures, norms, and conventions that together define the parameters of acceptable discourse. Institutionalized contexts produce argument fields, subdivisions of the technical sphere of argument (Goodnight, 1982), to which one is admitted by virtue of background, training, and expertise. Though not impermeable, there often is a clear distinction between participants and spectators. But politics? Political argumentation is about gaining and using power, about collective decision-making for the public good, about mobilizing individuals in pursuit of common goals, about giving effective voice to shared hopes and fears. These are what the pragma-dialecticians would call its activity types. It is preeminently the discourse of the public sphere, to which access is in principle unrestricted and for which technical expertise is not the price of admission. Its discourse is unregulated and often free-form. It reflects not only general understandings of argumentation but also, even more powerfully, the particularities of a specific political culture. It undoubtedly depends upon strategic maneuvering, but it seems the very antithesis of an institutionalized context. Yet political argumentation is neither random nor unpredictable. Across situations and even eras, one can find recurrences that help to define the genre and to establish its conventions. Though situated in particular contexts, it permits scholars to offer reflections that may transcend the details of any particular case. It is in this sense that we can speak of political argumentation as institutionalized. It is not that there are rules governing practice, but rather that from the accumulation of cases one can make generalizations ex post facto.
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We also must identify a unit of analysis. For example, an argument between two friends or dialogue partners that happens to be about politics could be considered a case of political argumentation, but if so it is an unproblematic case. It would proceed according to the same principles of dialogue logic, such as pragma-dialectics for example, that would characterize any other informal interaction in which the parties recognize and seek to resolve their disagreement by examining their respective commitments in a framework of argumentation. The fact that the parties are discussing politics would not by itself change the nature of their situation or our understanding of it. More challenging for our purposes are the sorts of disagreements and predicaments that engage entire political units, societies, or cultures, and that are addressed either by representative bodies or by a loosely-structured and ongoing circulation and modification of ideas and standpoints. This larger and more open-ended sense of political argumentation will be my focus in what follows: a sketch of some of the characteristics of this sort of argumentation and then an examination of some of the approaches to strategic maneuvering it invites. My examples will come from the experience of the United States, but the underlying principles should be more generally applicable.
2.
Characteristics of political argumentation
2.1
Lack of time limits
One feature of political argumentation is that it has no necessary time limits. Sometimes an artificial deadline will be imposed, as in the case of a political debate that is set for 90 minutes or a legislative deliberation with a time limit. But often this is not the case. Argumentation about the best way to provide and pay for health care, for example, has been a feature of the U.S. political culture for almost 60 years, was featured again in the 2008 election campaign, and probably will be contentious for some time thereafter. Public controversy over whether the U.S. should pursue a relatively isolationist or relatively interventionist foreign policy has manifested itself, albeit in different guises, since the early days of the nation. And disagreements between advocates of liberalism and of communitarianism reach back to the classical age. These may fit the definition of “essentially contested” arguments (Kekes, 1977): they involve competing dialectical visions, each of which gains meaning only in relation to the other. The natural trajectory of arguments can be very long, especially when a culture is in dialogue with itself. Lengthy and indeterminate arguments in turn create difficulties for invention and selection of topics. Arguers must recognize the ongoing nature of a long conversation yet must not simply repeat the same claims and standpoints that have
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been advanced and perhaps answered by others, lest “the well of invention run dry” (Griffin, 1952). Balancing the novel and the familiar is a constant challenge.
2.2 Lack of clear terminus Another characteristic of political argumentation is that arguments often have no clear terminus: one cannot be sure that the argument is over. Of course, one can find cases in which, by common consent, a dispute is treated as settled. For example, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 decisively answered the question of whether the United States should (or even could) remain apart from the war engulfing the world. The American Civil War settled the question of whether the republic could coexist with the “peculiar institution” of slavery. And the landslide victory of the Democratic party in 1964 settled the question of whether it was appropriate for the federal government to aid in the financing of education or to expand Social Security to include medical care for the elderly. But these cases are uncommon. More often, political argumentation ends in a manner akin to Kuhn’s account of paradigm shift (Kuhn, 1970). A way of thinking is not decisively refuted but at some point people simply find it less useful than a competing perspective as a world-view or explanation of reality. So, for example, the assumption of monolithic communism was no longer a useful premise for argument after the Sino-Soviet split emerged during the 1960’s, though different people “saw the light” and discarded the premise at different times. Similarly, arguments grounded in the assumption of a bipolar rivalry between superpowers who respectively embodied good and evil, fell out of fashion after the collapse of the Soviet Union – at least until rogue states and international terrorists replaced atheistic communism in the American national imaginary. But the prospects and possibilities for what the elder George Bush called the “new world order” were not self-evident to most and were embraced at different times by different people; there was no clear point at which the Cold War arguments were settled and postCold War argumentation began. It is particularly risky to interpret election outcomes as ending political arguments and creating mandates for specific actions. American elections are mixtures of personality contests and choices about issues, and there almost always are multiple issues in play. It is a frequent occurrence, therefore, that individuals will vote for a candidate despite, rather than because of, that candidate’s views on one or more issues. Yet victorious candidates have strong incentives to construe results as mandates, because doing so enhances their own credibility and creates momentum for action (Conley, 2001). But the candidate who thinks that his or her election has ended an argument often is surprised to discover the contrary.
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Franklin D. Roosevelt misunderstood his landslide 1936 re-election as a mandate to press forward with the New Deal by taming the power of a recalcitrant Supreme Court, and George W. Bush misunderstood his close election in 2000 as a national decision to enact a conservative legislative agenda. Sometimes arguments thought to be ended are only dormant. It seemed as though the dispute in the 1920’s between modernists and fundamentalists resolved the question of the place of religion in politics, but this controversy has reappeared with force in the past 25 years. Even court decisions that are intended to settle a controversy may turn out instead to reignite it. This is certainly true with respect to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1857 decision in the Dred Scott case, which some hoped would settle all outstanding issues regarding slavery. And it was true of the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, which some thought would end public disagreement about abortion. The implication of this lack of temporal boundaries is that it is very difficult to know which of the pragma-dialectician’s four stages the argument is in. Different arguers, in fact, may be at different stages of the same argument. One may be identifying a difference in standpoints, another trying to resolve it, and another trying to argue it out, all at the same time. Not only is the argument messy, but it is very hard to know what sort of norms and requirements ought to govern the dispute.
2.3 Heterogeneous audience Additionally, the audience for political argumentation is heterogeneous. After all, it arises in situations of dissensus – if people all held to similar standpoints, there would be little need to argue. As a consequence, though, the arguer will have a difficult time attributing any specific commitments to the audience as a whole, so it is a risky matter to relate one’s own statements to the audience’s prior commitments. If one were to imagine the audience as simulating the antagonist in a dialogue, then one would have to say that the antagonist is schizophrenic or has multiple personalities. Yet the arguer often tries to appeal to these multiple personalities at the same time. The best one can do is to assume that the audience will share general understandings and beliefs that characterize a political culture – what Farrell called social knowledge (Farrell, 1976). This knowledge consists largely of core values and norms. In the contemporary United States, for instance, the following statements would be regarded as examples of social knowledge: (1) The market mechanism generally works. (2) We all want what is best for our children. (3) A higher power guides our destiny. An arguer usually would not go wrong in assuming that his
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or her listeners held these beliefs. The task would be to develop arguments that recognize and build upon these commitments. Not only that, but any audience member may hold inconsistent elements of social knowledge at the same time. For example, a listener may believe both that government spending is wasteful and that no specific government program should be cut, or both that needy people deserve help and that public welfare encourages laziness and sloth, or both that we must defer to the sovereignty of other nations and that we must take whatever unilateral measures are necessary to stop terrorism. The arguer must calibrate his or her appeals carefully, in order to respond to audience members’ concerns without so strongly identifying with them as to inspire opposition from those who would identify more strongly with competing values or norms. Among the community’s social knowledge are simplified theories of attribution and motivation. For example, people often are more likely to attribute success to their own efforts and failure to efforts beyond their control, rather than the reverse. As a result, they may skew their judgments of causality. Because Ronald Reagan was U.S. President when the Cold War wound down, his efforts are assumed to be a large part of the cause. Similarly, because Bill Clinton was President at a time of record economic growth, that record is attributed by many to his economic policies. Or because there have been no terrorist attacks on the United States since September 11, 2001, supporters of President Bush credit his anti-terrorism policies with keeping the nation safe. This view of social knowledge promotes the use of the post hoc fallacy: after this, therefore because of it. This in turn constrains what the arguers are able to claim. Challenging popular beliefs about the locus of praise or blame must be undertaken delicately. Similarly, people carry around naïve theories of motivation. Uncomfortable with randomness or uncertainty, they assume that things happen because someone intends for them to. When what happens is unfortunate or harmful, many people have no difficulty in assuming that conspiratorial forces are at play. Why did mainland China “go communist” in the 1940’s when the United States was the world’s most powerful nation? For many, the answer was that subversives in the U.S. contrived a plot to betray their own country. Why was the United States attacked on September 11, 2001? For many, the answer was that it was the unfolding of a design by unnamed Islamic radicals to wage war on Western liberties and freedom. It is easy to see how those holding this view would be unconvinced to view the terrorist attacks as anything other than an act of war requiring a full military response.
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2.4 Open access The fact that political argumentation is open to all also creates constraints. Less sophisticated arguers cannot be expected to use technical terms accurately or to say exactly what they mean. More sophisticated arguers may find that their understanding of a standpoint is not shared by other participants or spectators. As a result, extensive reconstruction of an argument may be needed before the parties all understand exactly what is at issue or before the argument can be appraised. A famous example occurred during the second U.S. Presidential debate of 1992. The “Town Hall” format featured citizen questioners rather than journalists or politicians. One questioner asked the candidates how the national debt had affected them personally. Although “national debt” has a precise meaning as an accounting term, it seems evident from the context of the exchange that the questioner really was referring to the recent recession. Ross Perot and Bill Clinton understood this, “translated” the term into a reconstructed question focusing on the recession rather than the debt, and then answered what they thought the questioner really meant to ask. President George Bush, acknowledging that he did not “get” the question, offered an ineffectual response. Not only did his answer suggest that he misunderstood the question, but it also supported the inference that he really did not understand the economic plight of many Americans – that he clearly was “out of touch” with their needs.
2.5 Summary These, then, are some of the institutional conventions that shape political argumentation: no temporal limits, no way to be sure that the argument is over, heterogeneous audiences holding inconsistent standpoints, naïve theories of attribution and motivation, and of course the assumption that access to argumentation is open to all, which makes it necessary often for argument to be reconstructed. These constraints not only create opportunities for strategic maneuvering; they make it essential if political argumentation is to have a constructive result. At the same time, it is harder in political argumentation than in other institutionalized contexts to identify fallacious arguments, because derailments of strategic maneuvering are in the eye of the beholder and are easily influenced by one’s particular political beliefs and commitments. Recognizing the activity types in political argumentation, one must give the arguers significant latitude before judging them harshly.
3.
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Means of strategic maneuvering
In their treatise on the subject, van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2005) suggest three broad categories of strategic maneuvering: (1) topical potential, the selection of what lines of argument to use; (2) audience demand, the adaptation of one’s argument to the beliefs and commitments of the audience; and (3) presentational choice, referring to matters of style, structure, clarity, literalness or figurativeness, and so on. Rather than strictly following these categories, I identify types of strategic maneuvering in political argument that might fall under one or more of these headings.
3.1
Changing the subject
One very obvious exercise in strategic maneuvering is to change the subject. There are many different controversies in the public sphere at any one time. If a potentially damaging topic has emerged, it may be possible to redirect attention to a topic more favorable to one’s own interest. Candidates for office as well as incumbent office-holders do this often. Concerned that the perception of a stalemate in Iraq might dominate the public forum in 2006, President Bush tried instead to focus on the health of the economy. President Clinton sought to do the same in 1998 in the face of accusations about his personal misconduct.
3.2 Modifying the relevant audience A second type of strategic maneuvering is to change the scope of the relevant audience, reflecting Schattschneider’s (1960) dictum that the party who can successfully define the scope of an argument has the best chance to win the argument. If defense policy is seen as a matter of counting missiles and estimating their throwweight, then only defense specialists will pay much attention. But if it is seen as both a moral issue and a competition for scarce fiscal resources, then it is a matter of more general concern and others come into the fray. Schattschneider theorizes that the would-be loser has an incentive to alter the scope of the conflict, changing the balance between supporters and opponents. So, for example, when President Kennedy declared in a 1962 speech at Yale University that economic policy no longer raised broad questions of right and wrong but involved the practical management of a complex economy, he was trying to remove the issue from the realm of political argument and to reassign it to the technical sphere where only the experts need worry about it. This was to his strategic advantage because most of the public during the early 1960’s believed
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that budget deficits were wrong in principle. Since Kennedy was championing Keynesian economics, including the planned use of deficit spending as a means of economic stimulus, his position would be enhanced if he could effectively remove most of the general public from his audience. Conversely, when former Vice President Al Gore and others were stymied by their difficulty in advancing the case to control global warming at a time when the science seemed inconclusive, they refocused the problem as a moral issue regarding our stewardship of the earth and our responsibilities toward future generations. These were matters that engaged a broad swath of the public and, as expected, they brought far more people into the fray and shifted the balance of opposing forces.
3.3 Appealing to liberal and conservative presumptions Another kind of strategic maneuvering is to construct arguments that appeal to both the liberal and the conservative presumption (Goodnight, 1980). In a society without fundamental ideological differences, people are likely to share elements of both liberal and conservative world-views. This is true even when the society is politically polarized as in the example of the contemporary United States. People may be fiscally conservative but socially liberal, for example. Or they embrace the future while feeling nostalgia for the past. Or they favor government intervention in the economy but not in the private relationships between consenting adults. Arguers can enhance their chances of success by strategically combining elements of the liberal and the conservative presumption. For example, change can be presented not as a radical new departure but as a restoration of past conditions that have been lost. Both Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt advocated a strong, activist government not as a move toward a welfare state but as a way to counteract the power of big business and to return to the equilibrium that had marked the society of yeoman farmers, local merchants, and owners of small business. Or arguers might justify the expansion of government programs to aid education and health care by arguing, as Lyndon Johnson did, that they will make people more self-reliant and economically productive so that the government will gain more tax revenues and reduce its expenditures in the long run.
3.4 Reframing the argument A fourth kind of strategic maneuvering involves deciding how to frame a given argument. Since social reality is jointly constructed rather than “given” in advance, a set of factual circumstances can be understood in very different ways, depending on the frame of reference in which they are cast. The loss of jobs to other nations
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can be framed as a threat to the domestic economy or as proof of the economic theory of comparative advantage. The withdrawal of troops from Iraq can be framed as evidence of the failure of President Bush’s “surge” strategy or as proof of its success. The principal means of strategic maneuvering for this purpose is the persuasive definition, and probably the principal means of engaging in persuasive definition is the process Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1958/1969) label dissociation. I have spoken and written about these topics elsewhere (Zarefsky, 2006) and will resist the temptation to repeat myself here, except to note that when these devices reframe an argument, it is easy to see how they are elements of strategic maneuvering.
3.5 Using condensation symbols To accommodate the diversity of their audiences, political arguers often employ “condensation symbols” (Sapir, 1934) – visual or verbal symbols that “condense” a range of different meanings into a generally positive or negative connotation. People will share the same reaction to the symbol although they may do so for very different reasons. A national flag is an obvious condensation symbol. Except when it is used ironically, people can be expected to respond to it positively, even though the specific meanings it triggers will be variable: patriotism, identification with sacrifice, nostalgic identification with the past, pride, consciousness of citizenship, and so on. Similarly, well-crafted verbal phrases such as “strengthening the national security,” “investing in the future,” and “health care that’s always there” can attract adherence from people who actually support diametrically opposite policies. A coalition of supporters can be built from among those who intend very different policies but who employ the same symbols. Rather than confronting potential critics directly, this approach seeks to disarm them pre-emptively, converting them to supporters by bringing them within the ambit of one’s own symbolic resources.
3.6 Employing the locus of the irreparable Another characteristic of diverse audiences is that some members will be ready to take action, others may be opposed, and a still larger number will be uncommitted. Included among this larger category are people who are interested in an arguer’s topic and standpoint but who are not ready to take action committing themselves to it. For this group, the arguer may rely upon what Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1958/1969) call the locus of the irreparable. It is a standard pattern in which an arguer claims that if we do not act now, the moment will be lost.
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In the late 1990’s, for example, President Clinton suggested that unless the U.S. took advantage of budget surpluses to solve the coming fiscal crisis of Social Security, it would lose the opportunity to do so in a way that was both economically and politically viable. Political argumentation, in part, is about bringing dormant beliefs and values to the surface in a way that impels listeners to act.
3.7 Using figures and tropes argumentatively The final means of strategic maneuvering I will mention involves the argumentative use of what usually are regarded purely as figures of speech and literary devices. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1958/1969) have shown how these have argumentative effect by heightening or weakening an argument’s presence, clarifying choice, and increasing or decreasing a sense of communion among arguers and audiences. Many of these devices are used in political argumentation – repetition to create momentum, alliteration to create memorable phrases, antithesis to suggest open-mindedness and the ability to see both sides, the locus of the irreparable to create a sense of urgency, and so on. I want particularly to highlight the use of analogies, especially historical analogies. Both Presidents Bush gained traction for their Iraq policies by portraying Saddam Hussein as analogous to Adolf Hitler, whereas opponents of the war referred to Iraq as “another Vietnam,” hoping to evoke the sense of frustration with a quagmire that characterized the earlier war. Countless political candidates who were trailing in the polls have sought to reassure their supporters by reference to the amazing comeback by Harry Truman in the 1948 Presidential election. The power of the historical analogy lies not just in the suggestion of similarity but in the belief that current events are re-enacting those of an earlier time. Knowing how the earlier events came out imbues the current events with a teleological dimension: we know how they will come out too. This conviction gives arguers both inspiration and confidence that they are on the right path. So, for example, President Bush can express confidence that terrorists ultimately will fail, because they are following in the same path as earlier forms of totalitarianism. Similarly, opponents of abortion express confidence that their cause ultimately will prevail, because they see the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade as analogous to the infamous Dred Scott decision defending slavery, a decision that ultimately was repudiated in the eyes of history. These examples of strategic maneuvering are not meant to be exhaustive but to suggest possibilities. Changing the subject, changing the scope of the relevant audience, appealing to both liberal and conservative presumptions, framing of an argument, use of condensation symbols, invoking the locus of the irreparable, and argumentative use of historical analogies, are all means by which political argu-
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ers seek not only to resolve a dispute but to resolve it in their favor. To different degrees, they illustrate the three categories of strategic maneuvering set forth by van Eemeren and Houtlosser: topical potential, audience demand, and presentational choice.
4.
A case study
So far I have suggested some of the constraints facing political arguers and some of the devices of strategic maneuvering with which they respond to the constraints. It might be useful to see some of these approaches at work in the context of a specific case. For this purpose I have selected an excerpt from one of the KennedyNixon Presidential debates of 1960 (Kraus, 1962, pp. 401–403). This example is mundane – not eloquent, not especially memorable, but a good case of ordinary political argumentation. It also reveals at least the semblance of a developed argument, not just a series of disconnected sound bites. And it is a more structured argument than are many cases of political argumentation (See Appendix). On the surface the argument is straightforward. The moderator reports that Vice President Nixon has alleged that the Democratic platform is significantly more expensive than that of the Republicans; he invites Senator Kennedy to respond to this allegation. In effect, Nixon is the protagonist in the argument and Kennedy is the antagonist. But interestingly, Kennedy’s answer never responds directly to the exact question he was asked. He begins by asserting that the Democrats propose a balanced budget. He then offers specific examples of Democratic programs that are less expensive than those of the Republicans, while also acknowledging that there are some areas where he would spend more. He suggests that lowering interest rates would save the government money, offsetting the new spending he has proposed. Moving the cost of medical care for the elderly to Social Security rather than the general budget would do the same. Finally, he accuses Nixon of mis-stating the figures in his statements about program costs. In all of these statements, Kennedy never responds to the original allegation that the Democratic platform costs more than does the Republican version. But Kennedy’s response is not so clearly irrelevant to the question. It appears that he has reconstructed the argument. He imagines the argument as part of a larger dialogue, to which his answer is dialectically relevant (Walton, 2006). Kennedy appears to infer that the real question is not the one that was stated, but instead is something like, “Are the Democrats fiscally responsible?” He is responding to the imagined allegation, which was in wide circulation at the time, that Democrats could not be trusted to manage the federal budget or the national economy. Kennedy’s support for a balanced budget, for example, neither affirms
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nor denies that the Democratic platform is more expensive; it indicates instead that he has a way to pay for it without adding to the budget deficit or fueling inflation. He seems to be reasoning that the real question on the voters’ minds is not how much he will spend per se but whether he will have the budget under control. Although he does not directly answer the question posed by the moderator, he does answer the question believed to be on the minds of his larger audience. Similarly, Kennedy’s claims that lowering interest rates will reduce the need for government spending and that taking medical care for the aged off the federal budget would do the same, are not responsive to the question of whether his programs cost more, but they are responsive to implicit claims that Democrats do not understand how monetary and fiscal policies have second-order effects or that the management of the budget is a complex exercise. His answer also implies, without directly stating, that the true cost of a platform cannot be determined just by adding up first-order costs; the secondary and tertiary effects of the platform must also be considered. By arguing in this way, he also conveys the message that he understands better than Nixon what is involved in managing a complex economy. This is significant because one of the Republicans’ main themes in the campaign was that Kennedy lacked the experience and judgment needed to perform well in the office. Without directly addressing that question (at least in this part of the text), he nonetheless responds to it in the course of answering another, unstated standpoint. Kennedy’s credibility is enhanced by his pointing out that Nixon has mis-stated his figures. The ostensibly inexperienced candidate has it right and the savvy incumbent Vice President got it wrong. What are we to say of Kennedy’s response? Is it a “derailment” of strategic maneuvering or simply a mundane example of the institutionalized nature of political argumentation? If one assumes that this is a dialogue between Kennedy and the moderator, then these moves on Kennedy’s part are dialectically fallacious. But if one assumes that there is a much larger audience and that the activity types of political argumentation dictate wide latitude for the arguers, then the argument critic should be correspondingly charitable in evaluating their strategic maneuvering. I tend toward the latter point of view. The constraints on political argumentation require that the advocates have broad latitude to reconstruct the argument in order both to resolve the dispute and to resolve it in their favor. This case is evidence of the messiness of political argumentation, in which what is said may not be what is meant, and in which what is said may not permit the arguer to advance his or her own ground. Nixon’s rejoinder to Kennedy’s response is neither fish nor fowl. He does not return to his original standpoint (as presented by the moderator) that the Democrats’ plan is more expensive. Nor does he answer Kennedy’s implicit argument that the Democrats are just as fiscally responsible as is he. Rather, almost in hit-
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and-miss fashion, he selectively answers charges that Kennedy had made, moving the debate along the lines that Kennedy had established rather than playing to his own presumed strength. He promises that he will issue a statement showing that his figures were correct. He then challenges some of Kennedy’s answers as reflecting financial sleight-of-hand. Removing medical care for the aged from the operating budget will save money for the operating budget, but this will be offset by placing it under Social Security, which itself requires a tax. This is a useful exercise because Nixon is trying, apparently, to undermine Kennedy’s credibility while reestablishing his own. Both Nixon and Kennedy are using this mundane exchange about the budget in order to speak to a question that was pre-eminent in voters’ minds although not stated explicitly here: the character of each candidate. This is a generalized issue transcending any of the specific policy questions. Yet character seldom can be addressed directly because questions are answered with platitudes. Character is revealed in the way that the candidates discuss other issues. (One thinks of Nixon’s later statement, “I am not a crook,” in the context of the Watergate burglary, as an example of an explicit character defense that backfires.) Nixon then refers to the specific example of agriculture, one of the policy areas where Kennedy had said he would spend less. Nixon does not challenge the accuracy of the claim; rather, he changes the subject by introducing a new standpoint: that Kennedy’s farm policy is a bad policy. This is an attempt to reframe the discussion. Although it violates the relevance rule, as does much of Kennedy’s strategic maneuvering, Nixon’s tactic here is not a derailment per se. The real problem is that it is not likely to have been as effective as Kennedy’s own reconstruction because, for many, farm policy was not a burning issue and those for whom it was most salient likely were already inclined to support Nixon. The Vice President attempted to reframe the issue, but it did not work to his advantage. Finally, Nixon asserts (without argument or explanation) that a change in the interest rate will produce inflation and that it is unwise for that reason. This is somewhat similar to Nixon’s earlier response on Social Security. It suggests that he, not his challenger, understands the complexities and interrelationships of the economy. He also is able to refer to inflation almost as a condensation symbol and then to attack Kennedy as either misguided, deceptive, or naïve. Given his purposes and the activity type in which he was engaged, this too is an acceptable use of strategic maneuvering. Because it is not pursued, however, it is not as effective as what Kennedy has done.
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5.
Conclusion
In short, this example underscores that strategic maneuvering in political argument is widespread. It also points to some of the difficulties in evaluating the acceptability of strategic maneuvering by reference to the rules for a critical discussion. In a normative sense, political argumentation shares some of the characteristics of a critical discussion, but it is shaped largely by the constraints of a sphere of argument that is open to all without preconditions regarding training, expertise, or prior commitments. These circumstances require that the argument critic give wide latitude to the participants and be charitable in understanding what they are trying to do. If one keeps that advice in mind, political argumentation provides rich material for studying the possibilities and pitfalls of strategic maneuvering.
Appendix KENNEDY-NIXON DEBATE EXCERPT From the third Kennedy-Nixon Presidential Debate, October 13, 1960 MR. SHADEL [Bill Shadel, ABC News]: The next question is by Mr. Cater for Senator Kennedy. MR. CATER [Douglass Cater, Reporter Magazine]: Uh – Mr. Kennedy, uh – Senator – uh – Vice President Nixon says that he has costed the two party platforms and that yours would run at least ten billion dollars a year more than his. You have denied his figures. He has called on you to supply your figures. Would you do that? MR. KENNEDY: Yes, I have stated in both uh – debates and state again that I believe in a balanced budget and have supported that concept during my fourteen years in the Congress. The only two times when an unbalanced budget is warranted would be during a serious recession – and we had that in fifty-eight in an unbalanced budget of twelve billion dollars – or a national emergency where there should be large expenditures for national defense, which we had during World War II and uh – during part of the Korean War. On the question of the cost of our budget, I have stated that it’s my best judgment that our agricultural program will cost a billion and a half, possibly two billion dollars less than the present agricultural program. My judgment is that the program the Vice President put forward, which is an extension of Mr. Benson’s [Ezra Taft Benson, Eisenhower’s Secretary
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of Agriculture] program, will cost a billion dollars more than the present program, which costs about six billion dollars a year, the most expensive in history. We’ve spent more money on agriculture in the last eight years than the hundred years of the Agricultural Department before that. Secondly, I believe that the high interest-rate policy that this Administration has followed has added about three billion dollars a year to interest on the debt – merely funding the debt – which is a burden on the taxpayers. I would hope, under a different monetary policy, that it would be possible to reduce that interest-rate burden, at least a billion dollars. Third, I think it’s possible to . . . gain seven hundred million to a billion dollars through tax changes which I believe would close up loof – loopholes on dividend withholding, on expense accounts. Fourthly, I have suggested that the medical care for the aged – and the bill which the Congress now has passed and the President signed if fully implemented would cost a billion dollars on the Treasury – out of Treasury funds and a billion dollars by the states – the proposal that I have would be financed under the Social Security taxes; which is less than three cents a day per person for medical care, doctors’ bills, nurses, hospitals when they retire. It is actuarially sound. So in my judgment we would spend more money in this Administration on aid to education, we’d spend more money on housing, we’d spend more money and I hope more wisely on defense than this administration has. But I believe that the next Administration should work for a balanced budget, and that would be my intention. Mr. Nixon misstates my figures constantly, which uh – is of course his right, but the fact of the matter is: Here is where I stand and I just want to have it on the public record. MR. SHADEL: Mr. Vice President? MR. NIXON: Senator Kennedy has indicated on several occasions in this program tonight that I have been misstating his record and his figures. I will issue a white paper after this broadcast, quoting exactly what he has said on compulsory arbitration, for example, and the record will show that I have been correct. Now as far as his figures are concerned here tonight, he again is engaging in this, what I would call, mirror game of “here it is and here it isn’t.” Uh – On the one hand, for example, he suggests that as far as his medical care program is concerned that that really isn’t a problem because it’s from Social Security. But Social Security is a tax. The people pay it. It comes right out of your paycheck. This doesn’t mean that the people aren’t going to be paying the bill. He also indicates as far as his agricultural program is concerned that he feels it will cost less than ours. Well, all that I can suggest is that all the experts who have studied the program indicate that it is the most fantastic program, the worst program, insofar as its effect on the farmers, that the – America has ever had foisted upon it in an election year or
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any other time. And I would also point out that Senator Kennedy left out a part of the cost of that program – a twenty-five percent rise in food prices that people would have to pay. Now we are going to have that when it isn’t going to help the farmers? I don’t think we should have that kind of a program. Then he goes on to say that he’s going to change the interest-rate situation and we’re going to get some money that way. Well, what he is saying there in effect, we’re going to have inflation. We’re going to go right back to what we had under Mr. Truman when he had political control of the Federal Reserve Board. I don’t believe we ought to pay our bills through inflation, through a phony interest rate.
References Conley, P. H. (2001). Presidential mandates: How elections shape the national agenda. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2002). Dialectic and rhetoric: The warp and woof of argumentation analysis. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Farrell, T. B. (1976). Knowledge, consensus, and rhetorical theory. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 62(1), 1–14. Goodnight, G. T. (1980). The liberal and the conservative presumption. Proceedings of the [First] Summer Conference on Argumentation. Annandale, VA: Speech Communication Association. Goodnight, G. T. (1982). The personal, technical, and public spheres of argument: A speculative inquiry into the art of public deliberation. Argumentation and Advocacy, 18(4), 214–227. Griffin, L. M. (1952). The rhetoric of historical movements. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 38(2), 184–188. Kekes, J. (1977). Essentially contested concepts: A reconsideration. Philosophy and Rhetoric, 10(2), 71–89. Kraus, S. (Ed.) (1962/1977). The great debates. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Perelman, Ch., & Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1958/1969). The new rhetoric: A treatise on argumentation (J. Wilkinson & P. Weaver, Trans.). Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. Sapir, E. (1934). Symbolism. In E. R. A. Seligman (Ed.), Encyclopaedia of the social sciences. New York: Macmillan. Schattschneider, E. E. (1960). The semisovereign people: A realist’s view of democracy in America. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Walton, D. (2006). Fundamentals of critical argumentation. New York: Cambridge University Press. Zarefsky, D. (2006). Strategic maneuvering through persuasive definitions: Implications for dialectic and rhetoric. Argumentation, 20(4), 399–416.
Legitimation and strategic maneuvering in the political field Isabela Ieţcu-Fairclough
1.
Introduction
In this paper I am trying to make a contribution to the study of strategic maneuvering in the political field by bringing together a pragma-dialectical conception of argumentation (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992, 2004, van Eemeren and Houtlosser 2002, 2005), a sociological conception of legitimacy (Habermas 1976, 1990, 1996; Beetham 1991) and a sociological theory of the political field (Bourdieu 1991). Drawing on these sources, I will suggest a number of field-specific constraints on the dialectical preconditions for strategic maneuvering, as well as a range of rhetorical opportunities available to arguers in this field.1 Legitimizing arguments are specific to the political field, which is a domain of practical rationality, a domain where such questions as what ought to be done or what would be best to do prevail. Answers to such questions require justifications which can take the form of legitimizing arguments in support of alternative and often controversial normative claims. Actors in the political field are constantly advancing reasons for action or assessing the reasons for action that are put forward by other actors. In doing so, they are often constructing or evaluating legitimizing arguments. Of course, not every reason for action is part of a legitimizing argument. As I show below, legitimizing arguments are those that support a normative claim by invoking publicly shared systems of norms, values or beliefs which can in turn be justified as worthy of being publicly shared. A reasonable legitimizing argument in the political field will be one that, among other conditions, proceeds from shared commitments but, essentially, one in which these commitments are not merely intersubjectively shared, but can also withstand a process of public justification. One of the main claims I wish to defend is that sound strategic maneuvering with legitimizing arguments will involve a multilevel justification process as part of the arguer’s dialectical obligations.
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I will focus on a political speech made by the President of Romania, Traian Băsescu, following his suspension by Parliament in April 2007. I will suggest a view of political legitimation as an inherently argumentative activity that draws on different types of justification. From a normative perspective on legitimacy in a modern democratic polity, I will argue that, in order to gain or maintain legitimacy, power has to persuade in a reasonable way: it has to adapt to the audience but do so in a way that is considered reasonable, i.e. proceed from shared commitments that are in turn publicly justifiable. Like any other argument, a legitimizing argument involves strategic maneuvering, and the existence of several levels of justification in any legitimizing argument is, I suggest, the main dialectical constraint on strategic maneuvering in the political field. In the spirit of recent research in pragma-dialectics, namely a concern with institutional constraints on strategic maneuvering, I will look at the speech in terms of an activity of adjudication and discuss its specificity as an adjudication in the political field in an electoral campaign. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theorization of the political field, I will try to explore the way in which strategic maneuvering within political adjudication may be said to be constrained by the ‘logic’ of the political field both in the sense that this logic places constraints on the dialectical preconditions for strategic maneuvering, and in the sense that it offers particular field-specific rhetorical opportunities to the arguer. This paper is a revised version of Ieţcu-Fairclough (2008b). The revisions have to do mainly with a clarification of the constraints on dialectical preconditions for strategic maneuvering and of the rhetorical opportunities available to arguers in the political field. These constraints and opportunities arise, I suggest, because of the specific properties of the political field. In an electoral campaign (involving a form of adjudication), there will be various constraints on what counts as a dialectically acceptable move, but a variety of field-specific possibilities for being persuasive, or for what can count as good rhetorical move, will also open up. In my analysis, the dialectical constraints emerge from at least four main properties of the political field: (a) the fact that, unlike the natural word, the social and political world is a man-made construct; any claim about what ought to be done has to be justified in terms of people’s shared norms and values, but these in turn stand in need of justification (I suggest, without attempting to investigate this here, that this property can be related to pragma-dialectical Rule 6, the starting point rule); (b) the need for ‘closure’, i.e. for an end to debate and deliberation, and for moving on to decision-making – this property can be viewed, presumably, as a further specification of Rule 1, in the sense that the nature of the political places a limit on open-ended deliberation seen as deliberation without temporal limits; (c) the particular way of closing certain types of political argumentation, i.e. not only through critical discussion that aims to resolve a difference of opinion, but
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also by means of a democratic voting procedure that can ‘end’ disagreement in a way that is fair to all, even in conditions of disagreement that has not been resolved – this, I suggest, can be seen as a further specification of Rule 9, in the sense that political argumentation is not only about coming to an agreement but also involves procedures that override disagreement; (d) the connection between political argumentation and power and the nature of what is ultimately at stake in political confrontations. The rhetorical opportunities specific to the political field arise, I believe, primarily from the multiple and heterogeneous nature of the audience (this property is also discussed by Zarefsky 2008; see also Tonnard’s 2008 comments). Politicians have to mobilize majorities and will consequently have to ‘represent’ those interests and value commitments that can enlist majorities on their side. Downplaying differences and disagreements amongst the audience and constructing the audience as effectively sharing a number of uncontroversial interests and commitments will be one of the principal means whereby consensus is created and exploited. Thus, the audience that is addressed in a politician’s discourse is not an audience that is taken as pre-constituted and given, but an audience that is discursively constructed by that politician in accordance with a specific political agenda. Secondly, there are also possibilities deriving from the nature of ‘publicness’ or of interaction in the political field, which is not always ‘face-to-face’, but more often mediated by the mass-media, i.e. a ‘mediated quasi-interaction’ (Thompson 1995), oriented towards an indefinite range of potential recipients and therefore monological in nature. This again creates the possibility for arguers to construct their audiences in ways that favour their own position. Thirdly, a variety of questionable moves (e.g. ad hominem arguments) are usually acceptable in politics if they are justified in terms of legitimate political goals. The stakes in politics go beyond acceptability and dialectical reasonableness, and an unreasonable argument may still be acceptable to the critic for pragmatic reasons having to do with how that argument succeeds in mobilizing a majority of the public in support of a legitimate cause. In my view, legitimation as a social, political and argumentative practice is inherently a form of strategic maneuvering which aims to reconcile successfully various conflicting demands and pressures acting on political actors: not only to persuade the audience of the rightness of one’s particular political standpoint and to do so in a way that is considered reasonable, but also to democratically represent the electorate and to mobilize the highest number of voters in order to maintain or obtain political power. The nature of the political field will create field-specific dialectical constraints on strategic maneuvering, as well as rhetorical opportunities for strategic maneuvering with arguments of legitimation.
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2.
Approaches to ‘legitimation’ and ‘legitimacy’
We speak about legitimation not only in connection with normative claims within discursive argumentative practices, but primarily in connection with political power. Achieving legitimacy is a goal of political power in any state. To the extent that legitimation strategies are discursive, I argue that they are inherently argumentative and that they involve a process of public justification of power. In what follows I will deal mainly with the first of the dialectical constraints I have identified above, namely the nature of legitimizing arguments in the political field, as arguments involving several levels of justification. In social and political theory, the concepts of ‘legitimacy’ and ‘legitimation’ are generally defined in terms of concepts of argumentation, giving or having reasons, and justification. According to Habermas, for example, legitimacy designates ‘the worthiness of a political order to be recognized’, or, in other words, it indicates that ‘there are good arguments for a political order to be recognized as right and just’. In modernity, he argues, legitimacy becomes procedural, in the sense that it is now the formal procedures and conditions on possible consensus formation that possess legitimizing force. Normative conceptions of legitimacy such as Habermas’s detach judgments of legitimacy from what people currently believe to be legitimate (because even a majority of people can be mistaken) and attach legitimacy to an argumentative process whereby some consensus is reached through considered, unbiased reflection (Habermas 1996: 248). Some normative approaches also emphasize the need to take historical context into account. Beetham (1991) suggests a view of legitimacy-in-context, based on the following crucial claim: ‘A given power relationship is not legitimate because people believe in its legitimacy, but because it can be justified in terms of their beliefs’ (Beetham 1991: 11). Consequently, power is legitimate to the extent that: a. it conforms to established rules (level of rules); b. the rules can be justified by reference to beliefs shared by both dominant and subordinate (level of justifications grounded in beliefs); c. there is evidence of consent by the subordinate to the particular power relation (level of action) (Beetham 1991: 16). The legitimation of power is analogous with the legitimation of any normative claim: common to both is a process of justification in terms of shared norms (rules) and a further justification of these shared norms or rules by showing that they are, in Habermas’s terms, ‘worthy of being recognized’, worthy of being intersubjectively shared (Habermas 1990: 61). I take this to mean that a normative claim is legitimate (action x is legitimate, or we ought to do x) because action x
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conforms to shared norms or values (e.g. action x is useful or morally just) and these shared norms or values are publicly justifiable (e.g. utility or justice can be justified in turn as values or norms that are worthy of being intersubjectively recognized). In the absence of the latter condition, we could never move on from a conception of legitimacy as what people merely believe to be legitimate (the Weberian view) to a normative conception which involves not only belief in legitimacy – level (c) above, but also conformity to norms or rules – level (a) – and the public justifiability of these norms or rules – level (b). In my analysis, I will try to show how (de)legitimation proceeds by drawing on the three levels identified by Beetham, as different types of justification for one’s legitimacy claim. These types of justification provide both a way of arguing reasonably, by grounding one’s arguments in shared commitments (as to what these rules are, and how they are further justifiable in terms of shared beliefs) and a way of adapting to the audience, by selecting those systems of rules and shared commitments that are more likely to resonate with that audience. For example, assuming that – in a context in which there is a high level of corruption within the political system and considerable popular discontent as a consequence – a politician were to legitimize his actions against corruption by claiming that he is obeying the law – level (a) above – and that the audience believes that the law is just and wants to see justice done and corrupt politicians punished (b), if moreover there was evidence of the audience’s support for these actions, if people behaved as if they believed that punishing corruption is the right thing to do (c), the legitimizing argument in favour of such punishment would be a reasonable one in terms of the above schema. This is both because the argument would draw on mutual concessions to support a claim, according to a logically valid argumentative schema (the dialectical dimension) and because, thus framed, the argument would be well-adapted to the beliefs and concerns of the audience in that context (the rhetorical dimension). Strategic maneuvering, in other words, would be in this case both dialectically strong and rhetorically strong. But, and this is my crucial point, the argument’s strength would not merely reside in adaptation to what the audience believes and wants: not just any adaptation to currently prevailing beliefs would do, but adaptation to beliefs and values that can be publicly justified as worthy of being shared.
3.
The institutional context: Adjudication as activity type
Parliament voted to suspend the President of Romania on the 20th of April 2007 by a majority of 322 to 108 on the grounds that Băsescu had exceeded his legitimate constitutional powers. In 2004, Băsescu became president because he
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promised to put a stop to corruption, and the attempt to impeach him was interpreted by many as a concerted reaction to his anti-corruption campaign. In a referendum (on May 19, 2007), the Romanian electorate rejected Parliament’s attempt to impeach the President by a majority of 75%. A feature of the campaign between the suspension and the referendum was an explicit focus on legitimacy. Parliament asserted its own legitimacy, as elected representative of the people, and the legitimacy of the Constitution, which Băsescu had allegedly violated. Băsescu, media commentators and members of the public denied the legitimacy of Parliament, by pointing out that the majority of the population disapproved of the suspension and the impeachment. They also argued that, although Parliament is a democratically elected institution in principle, it was not really legitimate, given that its members had not been elected individually, by uninominal vote, but on party lists.2 I am going to look at the text of Băsescu’s suspension speech as part of a process of adjudication in the political field. In various articles, van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2005, 2006) compare the argumentative activity types of adjudication, mediation and negotiation and argue that the institutional circumstances inherent in a specific activity type determine the dialectical preconditions for strategic maneuvering. They define adjudication as an activity type that aims for the termination of a dispute by a third party, rather than the resolution of a difference of opinion by the parties themselves. In adjudication, the parties readjust their roles from trying to convince each other to trying to convince the presumably neutral, impartial adjudicator. I am suggesting that the interaction between Băsescu as protagonist and the audience combines features of an argumentative discussion between two parties (Băsescu and his immediate public) with features of an adjudication, i.e. the President is presenting his case and trying to legitimize his position in front of the Romanian people as adjudicator, of which the assembly he is addressing seems to be a metonymical subset. This is not prototypical adjudication and I will identify features which make it atypical and which may be said to arise from properties of the political field. My suggestion is supported by the fact that the people were in fact called upon to decide, through a referendum, whether Băsescu was ‘guilty’ or not, and especially that, in this speech, Băsescu does try to clear himself of the accusations and plead his case before the people.3 The President of Romania is addressing an implicit difference of opinion among the electorate, between those who would vote Yes in the impeachment referendum and those who would vote No. There are several participants in this interaction: Băsescu as the main protagonist, the immediate, co-present public as antagonist and protagonist, the 322 MPs that voted against Băsescu as a represented protagonist There are two publics: an immediate public, who engages in
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interaction with Băsescu, and occasionally expresses agreement or voices some distinct standpoint of its own, and a wider public, who is cast here in the role of a supposedly neutral adjudicator that eventually has to give a verdict. In addressing his immediate audience of supporters (an audience that does not really need to be persuaded), Băsescu is at the same time addressing the wider public, the electorate. In constructing and exploiting the consensus of views with his immediate public, he is actively constructing a wider consensus with parts of the electorate that might vote against him. He seems to address his immediate audience as a sort of metonymical subset of the Romanians at large and to attribute identical value commitments to these two publics. Nowhere is it apparent from his speech that amongst the wider audience there might be a significant proportion of voters who might choose to vote in favour of the impeachment. Zarefsky (2008) observes that political argumentation is typically not institutionalized in a formal sense. Rather, it manifests an absence of clear temporal limits, it offers open access to all and is addressed to heterogeneous audiences holding a variety of incompatible standpoints and value commitments. This is why, in his view, politicians usually avoid attributing very specific commitments to the audience, and rather attempt to address it as one, emphasizing those very general commitments that can be expected to be shared among people of otherwise very different political persuasions. As I argue later, the characteristics of the audience in the political field, as a heterogeneous audience, are such that trying to achieve a maximally clear definition of the political confrontation, or of the point of departure (e.g. clarify what exactly people believe, what range of diverse views is available, what alternative standpoints there are to a politician’s claims, etc.) may work against rhetorical goals. It is therefore advisable to reconstruct the audience as sharing a definition of the confrontation and of the starting points that serves one’s own persuasive goals and to do so in a way that does not alienate parts of the audience but creates a maximally inclusive audience.4
4.
Analysis
In this section I will try to analyze the speech made by the President of Romania, Traian Băsescu, in Bucharest, in Constitution Square, on April 22, 2007, immediately after his suspension by Parliament (my translation). The President is here urging the audience to reject the impeachment in the upcoming referendum. Surprisingly, he is not arguing against his opponents’ decision to suspend him by showing why their decision is unacceptable, but is choosing not to address the opponents’ argument explicitly at all. Taken as a whole, the protagonist’s argumentation is ad hominem, to the extent that it rejects his opponents’ standpoint
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by claiming that they have a particular bias or personal interest in the matter, or that they are enemies of modernization and democracy, supporters of the ‘oligarchs’, etc. The only way in which the protagonist engages with his opponents’ challenge to his legitimacy is by claiming that it is in fact these opponents who are illegitimate (mainly because they do not represent the will of the people) and by emphatically reasserting his own legitimacy. It is this strategic shift from an argument against the suspension, which we might have expected, to a legitimizing argument (involving self-legitimation and delegitimation of adversaries) that enables the protagonist to draw on widely shared and publicly justifiable beliefs of the audience, construct a maximally inclusive audience and get away with a variety of dialectically questionable argumentative moves. From the very beginning, the protagonist constructs an audience that shares his values, his alleged ‘confidence in democracy’, and clearly places the discussion within the framework of a particular ‘game’ and set of ‘rules’: the democratic game, and not, for instance, the Constitution (which is the set of rules that his opponents are relying on): “Welcome. It’s good to be here with you. I want to thank you for sacrificing a Sunday to come here so that together we might reassert our confidence in democracy and in the rule of law. (…) I would like to begin by wishing a happy name day to all those men and women whose name is connected to Saint George. Tomorrow Saint George will also inaugurate the campaign for the referendum. Are we expected to fight a dragon? I think we are. It is that part of the state created during transition that will not accept that the time has come for Romania to become a modern state. One where institutions work for the citizens, wherever they might find themselves.” The analogy with Saint George and the Dragon pre-defines the roles of the participants, the moral dimension of the conflict and its desired outcome. From the start, the conflict is defined by the protagonist in a self-serving way, as a battle against the enemies of Romania’s institutional modernization. “A few days ago, 322 members of the Romanian Parliament voted in favour of suspending the President. The Romanian Parliament is a safeguard, ought to be a safeguard of your freedoms, of the prosperity of each Romanian, of the welfare of each Romanian. But we have one problem with these 322 members of parliament. Are they representing you in their vote? [Crowd: ‘No!’] What we have here is a manifestation of institutions of the state that do not take into consideration the will of the people. These people believe that the institutions of the state are at their service and they place them at their service and not at the service of the people.’’
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This paragraph is crucial to Băsescu’s argument, as it introduces the challenge addressed to the 322 MPs that they do not in fact represent the will of the electorate. He claims (and the assembly agrees) that the fundamental rule of the democratic game, i.e. democratic representation, has been violated: instead of representing the people, these MPs are serving their own interests. Implicitly, the 322 are illegitimate because they violate the rules of democracy and people’s shared normative expectations (the first and second level in Beetham’s definition). “Let me explain… [Crowd: ‘Traitors!’ ‘Traitors!’] No, they have only become detached from the interests of the people they claim to be representing. They are not traitors. They have only lost contact with the people that sent them into Parliament, these 322. Many of them may not even know why they voted as they did. This is what their bosses told them to do. They could tell them because they were not voted by each and every one of you. They were on a party list and, unfortunately, they are no longer on your list, on the list of the Romanian citizens. And our duty is to ask them to do their duty.” Interestingly, although his own argumentation is largely ad hominem, Băsescu explicitly refuses the option of an ad hominem attack that is presented to him by the audience. He refuses to call these MPs ‘traitors’ and proceeds to delegitimize them in a more reasonable way, in relation to premises that the audience already accepts: they are not ‘traitors’ but they have failed in the mission to faithfully represent the people who sent them into Parliament. Thus, the opponents’ standpoint is discredited because the opponent is shown not to be playing by the publicly accepted rules of the democratic game. Băsescu also refers to a problematic aspect of the law itself: elections are on party lists, which means that MPs are not elected directly by the citizens. He problematizes here the relation between the first level, that of the rules, and their justifiability in terms of shared beliefs, and conveys implicitly (through presupposition: ‘unfortunately...’) that there is a clash between the rules, as they are, and what they should be, according to people’s expectations (again between the same two levels). Through rhetorical questions, Băsescu is here eliciting from the interlocutor their agreement on premises whereby he progressively builds his own case. “In fact, what have I done to upset these 322 parliamentarians? I asked for high quality in the education system. Was I wrong in asking for this? [Crowd: ‘No’!] I wasn’t wrong. I asked that the reform of the health system should be done for the people. Was I wrong? [Crowd: ‘No!’] I wasn’t wrong. I have condemned the crimes of communism. Was I wrong? [Crowd: ‘No!’] I wasn’t wrong. I have transferred the archives of the Securitate to the CNSAS so that nobody might be blackmailed in this country ever again. Was I wrong? [Crowd: ‘No!’] I wasn’t wrong. (...) I have asked
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Parliament to introduce the uninominal vote in the next elections. Was I wrong? [Crowd: ‘No!’] I wasn’t wrong.” Upon being questioned, the audience agrees that it is not wrong to ask for various changes in the activity of various institutions. Băsescu seems in fact to be conducting an ‘intersubjective identification procedure’, whereby he is making explicit, actually constructing the level of shared beliefs in terms of which the audience is supposed to evaluate his standpoint. “These are just a few of the reasons why, on the day of referendum, the vote you will have to cast for the impeachment of the President should be just one: ‘No!’ [Crowd: ‘Băsescu! Băsescu!’] These 322 Parliamentarians, and I repeat, 322 Parliamentarians, and not the Romanian Parliament, must receive one answer at the referendum: ‘No’. The answer that shows that the President of Romania was not wrong to ask for the modernization of this country in favour of the Romanian people.(…)’’ There is a sound and effective instance of strategic maneuvering at this point, with the help of dissociation: it is not the legitimacy of Parliament that Băsescu is contesting, but only that of the 322 MPs. He is thus making it clear that he is not contesting the principle of democratic representation but only a particular case in which its functioning was distorted (the discussion is thus briefly brought back to the opening stage, and the audience is reminded who the argumentative opponent is). For reasons of space, I am omitting a passage in which the protagonist launches into the impossibility of negotiating with his opponents. ‘There is nothing to negotiate’ because the opponent does not play by the rules of the democratic game (i.e. there is an alleged inconsistency: they are ‘representatives’ that do not ‘represent’). There is also a refusal of negotiation and dialogue on the grounds of the urgency of action. As I have argued (Ieţcu-Fairclough 2008b), this is a reasonable move in the political field, where public deliberation eventually has to give way to decision and action, whether or not consensus has been achieved: “We are not allowed to delay the transformation of the Romanian state until we can finally negotiate what can be done. We need a modern state now, a state where the money can reach the wretched peasant who has to do something with his wretched piece of land. Where the money can reach the villages… (...). This is a battle that we must all fight together.” Throughout these passages, the audience is attributed the same values, concerns, needs and beliefs as Băsescu and is invited to join the protagonist in the battle for modernization. What is most interesting here is the way in which the difference of opinion over whether Băsescu should be impeached is redefined as one over
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whether Romania should become a modern democratic state. According to the protagonist, to vote Yes to impeachment is to vote against modernization and against democracy and therefore against shared values, beliefs and norms. The relevance and justificatory potential of modernization and democracy as topical choices in relation to the claim that people ought to vote against the impeachment are questionable. As I have indicated, the argumentation is mainly ad hominem and says: my opponents’ argument is unacceptable because they are enemies of modernization and democracy, while I am their champion. In addition, the redefinition of the conflict as a battle for or against democracy, where to vote against Băsescu is apparently equivalent to ‘suspending our democracy’, is highly questionable because it involves dubious analogies: “I was suspended with a total of 322 votes against one man. What the 322 members of Parliament did not understand was this: that they were not canceling the mandate of one man, but the vote of millions of Romanians. And this is unacceptable in a democracy. Practically, all of us are suspended citizens, suspended by 322 people. Who has given these 322 people the right to suspend our democracy?” Băsescu claims here that the suspension of a democratically elected president contradicts the rules of the democratic game (i.e. it is illegitimate from the point of view of the observance of democratic rules): it means to cancel the votes of the people who elected him, to ‘suspend’ these citizens and ultimately democracy itself, the very the principle of representation. However, it can be easily pointed out that it is precisely in a democracy that one can suspend a president, and more generally that these analogies do not hold. For the reasons above, strategic maneuvering with the topics of democracy and modernization is can be considered dialectically questionable in this particular situation, in relation to the normative claim they are supposed to justify. However, in a political context, such strategic maneuvering will be usually considered both rhetorically and dialectically strong. Because of the high stakes involved in decision-making in the political field, invoking a politician’s failure to act in accordance with principles of modernization and democracy, however irrelevant to the particular standpoint under discussion, is more often than not perceived as highly relevant to that politician’s overall credibility, and more generally to his legitimacy. Even in the absence of a good argument against the opponents’ position, strategic maneuvering with such widely shared commitments as democracy and modernization is likely to produce a persuasive argument, because these commitments enter into judgments of legitimacy made about politicians by the public. It is the relevance of these commitments to a (de)legitimizing argument that makes the argument both rhetorically and dialectically strong. Framing an argument as
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a legitimizing argument, i.e. undertaking justification of a normative claim not only in terms of shared beliefs but also in terms of shared systems of rules and in terms of the public justifiability of these rules will produce a good argument because these are the types of justification that are recognized as persuasive and sound in the political field. In maneuvering strategically with these two topics, the protagonist manages to find the best way of constructing a maximally inclusive audience and of positioning it as an adjudicator with whom he shares commitments that go far beyond particular divisive interests. The construction of the audience as maximally inclusive and of the protagonist as representative of virtually all the Romanians is also reinforced by the way in which Băsescu identifies the political enemy: it is not the Parliament, neither the various parties the public may support, nor is it any section within the Romanian people, but the more clearly circumscribed categories of the ‘322 MPs’ and ‘the oligarchs’. “Dear friends,… I come before you not as a representative of one party or another, or of any group… My constitutional status means that I am a representative of the Romanians that has been called into question by 322 members of Parliament but is confronted with the vote of 22 million Romanians… But one thing has to be clear: nobody has given a mandate to these 322 members of Parliament to vote for the suspension of the President of Romania. They received their mandate from the oligarchs. And I am certain that any Romanian will vote against the oligarchs…” Once again, the protagonist shows that he is legitimate by reference to both systems of rules, the Constitution and democracy: he was elected democratically and he submits himself again to a democratic vote. Again, he invokes representation as a fundamental rule and claims that the 322 MPs are illegitimate vis-a-vis this rule, as they have not received a mandate from the Romanian people, but from private interest groups (the ‘oligarchs’). Băsescu’s claim to legitimacy is thus supported by several types of justification: his own conformity to systems of rules (e.g., the democratic system of election and representation), people’s belief that these systems of rules are right, and their manifest consent as embodied in action (participation in public rallies, manifest approval of the President’s position, etc.). These types of justification, which can be viewed as topical choices, can be used in every legitimizing argument. What the protagonist does here is to use them to his own advantage, by emphasizing at great length, for instance, the way in which his political position accords with the democratic rules of the game and the way in which his opponents are flouting these rules, while at the same time obscuring any justification the opponents
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might have for their actions or any support their position might actually have from parts of the population. A schematic reconstruction of Băsescu’s argument might look as follows (in brackets, I indicate which particular level in Beetham’s definition of legitimacy is drawn upon): 1. You should vote No in the referendum. (The standpoint of the opponent should be rejected.) (Claim). 1.1. (The 322 MPs are illegitimate.) 1.1.1. The 322 MPs violate democratic rules (they do not represent the people but the ‘oligarchs’). (L1) 1.1.1’. (We believe that) this is unacceptable in a democracy. (L2) 1.1.1”. There is manifest consent for democracy on behalf of the public. (L3) 1.1.2. The 322 MPs are against Romania’s modernization, they support the interests of the ‘oligarchs’, the subordination of institutions to private interests, etc. (L1) 1.1.2’. (We believe) that the time has come for Romania to become a modern state, where institutions work for citizens, etc. (L2) 1.1.2”. There is manifest consent for modernization on behalf of the public. (L3) 1.2. (I am a legitimate president.) 1.2.1. I advocate institutional modernization. (L1) 1.2.1’. (We believe) the President was not wrong to ask for modernization of the education system, the health system, etc. (L2) 1.2.1”. There is manifest consent for modernization on behalf of the public. (L3) 1.2.2. I represent the Romanians (according to both the Constitution and the rules of democracy). (L1, as two distinct systems of rules) 1.2.2’. (We believe in the legitimacy of the Constitution and of democracy.) (L2) 1.2.2”. There is manifest consent for modernization on behalf of the public. (L3).
The argumentation draws, explicitly or implicitly, on all the three types of premises identified by Beetham for legitimizing arguments. Premises 1.2.1 and 1.2.2, for instance, indicate that the protagonist obeys some system of ‘rules’ (however loosely defined – the rules of democracy, of the Constitution, the principles of institutional modernization, etc.), and they are in turn supported by premises which indicate that the particular system of rules that is invoked is grounded in people’s beliefs (L1 is grounded in L2). People’s beliefs are invoked by the protagonist as shared
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beliefs (L2) but are also actively elicited as responses to rhetorical questions (thus foregrounding the third level of legitimacy, L3, in Beetham’s schema, the level of expressed consent). Shared beliefs are invoked either to support the protagonist’s position or to indicate that there is a clash with the opponents’ position. If shared beliefs contravene the way in which the opponents are playing the political game, a problem of legitimacy deficit can be said to arise for the opponents. In what way is the adjudication going on here different from typical adjudications in the legal field? In principle, the adjudicator is or should be neutral and cannot be enlisted by either party in support of their cause. I have observed however that the protagonist repeatedly claims commonality of values and goals with the adjudicator on matters which are after all strictly relevant to the success of his case (‘I am certain that every Romanian will vote against the oligarchs’). Because he and the adjudicator are allegedly committed to the same values, it can only follow that, when presented with the facts, the adjudicator can only decide in Băsescu’s favour. This peculiarity arises from the particular kind of political game Băsescu is engaged in, and from the particularities of the political field in an electoral situation, where the adjudicator is the people, and each party or politician supposedly represents the interests of the people as ultimate adjudicator. To enlist the adjudicator on your side and invest it with a commitment to the values, goals, etc. that you stand for, is therefore presumably not an unreasonable move in the political field, but may have to do with the logic or principles of the political field, as I will suggest below. As I have said, however, these commitments have to be of a sufficiently uncontroversial nature to guarantee quasi-unanimous support. Strategic maneuvering with the topics of modernization and democracy, as well as a precise definition of the political enemy (‘322 MPs’, not the Parliament; the ‘oligarchs’, not the rival parties) can be safely relied upon to provide precisely that, and thus deal successfully with the constraints and opportunities created by the heterogeneous nature of the audience. Adaptation to the audience is thus seen to involve not finding out what the audience believes and then adapting one’s message to those beliefs, but the discursive construction of an audience whose alleged beliefs support the claim one wishes to make. So, in apparently asking for the people’s objective judgment, the protagonist is in fact presenting a case defined in terms that will serve his rhetorical objectives to a judge whom he has discursively constructed as sharing exactly those commitments that will argue for his case. By turning a conflict on whether he should or should not be impeached into an argument of self-legitimation and delegitimation of his opponents, Băsescu is able to draw on widely shared beliefs and systems of rules and thus increase the acceptability of his argument.
5.
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The contradictory logic of the political field
The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1991) analyzes the political field as a site par excellence in which words are actions and the symbolic character of power is at stake. It is a field of forces and of conflict aimed at transforming the relations of power which confer on this field its structure at any given moment. Agents in the political field are continuously engaged in a labour of representation by which they seek to construct and impose a particular vision of the social world (i.e. a particular ideology, or ‘truth’), while at the same time seeking to mobilize the support of those upon whom their power ultimately depends. These visions cannot be assessed independently of their power of mobilization. ‘Thus, the production of ideas about the social world is always in fact subordinated to the logic of the conquest of power, which is the logic of the mobilization of the greatest number’. Politicians, in other words, have to produce ‘ideas that are capable of producing groups’ (Bourdieu 1991: 181–182). The underlying logic of the political, as Bourdieu understands it, has to do with mobilization, i.e. with power, not primarily with truth. Politicians can obtain power if their ideas are recognized by a majority, if they can mobilize a higher number than their political competitors. The power of a discourse ‘depends less on its intrinsic properties than on the mobilizing power it exercises – that is, at least to some extent, on the degree to which it is recognized by a numerous and powerful group’ (Bourdieu 1991: 188). And one issue to speculate on is to what extent this particular logic affects the boundaries of reasonableness in the political field. Bourdieu speaks of the political ‘game’ as a ‘double game’ (Bourdieu 1991: 180–183), in which the ‘external’ relation of politicians to the electorate is subordinated to the ‘internal’ struggle for power within the political system. There is ‘duality of frames of reference’: the politician is simultaneously playing a game in the political field, against his competitors, and a game in the social field, in which he represents his electorate. There is a ‘homology’ between these frames of reference, such that politicians ‘serve the interests of others in so far (and only in so far) as they also serve themselves while serving others’ (Bourdieu 1991: 183). In other words, a successful move in one game is also a successful move in the other game. For instance, if a politician allows himself to be discredited by a political opponent, he is at the same time doing a disservice to his own electorate. The game of representation of the views and interests of the electorate typically takes the form of a game of democratic representation, in which politicians claim to represent the interests of the entire population or of large sections, as power depends on successful mobilization of majorities. In terms of the analysis undertaken here, we can say that Băsescu is playing an (external) game of ‘democratic representation’ (he is an alleged spokesperson, giving voice to the vision of
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the public, he knows ‘what kind of Romania’ the public wants) and an (internal) ‘power game’ within the political field against his competitors. He can win the game against his political adversaries if he plays the game of democratic representation in such a way as to gain the adherence of the highest number of people. The way in which he has to play the game of democratic representation is thus subordinated to the imperative of mobilization, as it is the power to mobilize that gives politicians their power in relation to their competitors. In the speech I have been looking at, the protagonist bases his self-legitimizing strategy (as well as his delegitimation of his opponents) on the theme of democratic representation. He makes representation appear straightforward and unproblematic: the representative speaks in the name of the people and expresses the people’s wishes, the people give a mandate of representation to politicians in order to make their voices heard and can withdraw this mandate when politicians do not express their interests. He seems to know that, if he can convincingly show that his opponents are violating the democratic game, while he is playing fairly by the rules of this game, he will succeed in mobilizing a large part of the electorate. This is because, on a variety of substantive issues, the electorate will be predictably divided. There is no point in raising potentially controversial substantive issues, unless one can be certain that there is consensus on that issue (e.g. the desirability of institutional modernization). However, as Băsescu knows, there is a wide consensus on the desirability of democratic processes; this is therefore the one consensus, a procedural one, that it is strategically advisable to draw on and to identify one’s own position with. According to Bourdieu, democratic representation is much more complex than it appears. The political field involves a paradox: individuals cannot constitute themselves as a group with a voice capable of making itself heard unless they dispossess themselves in favour of a spokesperson in whom they vest the right to speak on their behalf. And although, as Bourdieu argues, ‘in appearance the group creates the man who speaks in its place and in its name’, ‘in reality it is more or less just as true to say that it is the spokesperson who creates the group’ (Bourdieu 1991: 204). Thus, instead of a politician expressing the interests of the group, what we have in fact is a politician postulating group-interests that favour his own position in the political field. And in allegedly acting as a spokesperson, the politician can invent the people’s message according to his own interests. This is arguably what Băsescu is doing here with the topic of ‘modernization’ – definitely, not a message extracted from the people, but a topical choice of his own invention, which is only attributed to the people, as an alleged shared concern, yet a very effective choice in the game of mobilization of majorities. And here is where the political field (and electoral campaigns or adjudications as activity types) can be said to place constraints on what counts as a good
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argumentative move, i.e. one that is both dialectically and rhetorically strong. Trying to democratically represent the interests and views of the citizens as particular group interests will most probably work against the politician’s rhetorical objectives. The nature of the audience, as a large, heterogeneous, not immediately co-present audience, together with the possibility that the standpoint that a politician wants to defend may not even be shared by a majority of voters, and that competing standpoints might, if acknowledged and addressed, conceivably weaken his position, will make it necessary that certain dialectical moves should be disciplined by rhetorical considerations, or in other words, that the imperative of democratic representation be subordinated to that of mobilization. It will thus become strategically advisable for the politician to downplay differences and emphasize commonality of views, and construct a maximally inclusive adjudicator that shares his views. Finally, there is, I suggest, yet another type of constraint that influences what counts as a dialectically acceptable move in the political field. In any society, as we know, there will always be disagreement that is irreducible. Yet, there is a need for decision and action and for an end to disagreement. According to a democratic conception of legitimate authority, when public deliberation fails to deliver a consensus on the common good, the way forward is by means of a decision-making process that is fair to the views and interests of all members, in the only way in which it can possibly be fair, by submitting issues to a democratic vote and deciding that one will defer to the majority. In other words, disagreements over substantive conceptions of what social arrangements we should adopt are overridden by a fundamental agreement on the legitimacy of democratic procedure. Thus, there is not only temporary ‘closure’ through decision-making and action, but there is also a particular type of procedure that temporarily ‘resolves’ disagreement, if not always by persuasion, then at least by democratic vote. I am suggesting that these particularities of politics may require a specific reformulation of the dialectical rules for argumentation in the political field, in the sense that, for instance, Rule 1 (the freedom rule) should be understood as warranting in practice some form of closure of the debate (because public deliberation cannot last indefinitely), and Rule 9 (the closing rule) should come to include, for certain types of interaction (electoral campaigns) a procedure of closing the debate (i.e. democratic vote) that overrides concerns with persuasion and agreement.
6.
Conclusion
The contradictory nature of the political field manifests itself in a diversity of contradictory judgements of what legitimate political action is. These judgments will
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vary depending on the political, ideological position that one is speaking from and will illustrate the absence of consensus on substantive issues. In the political field, a variety of ideologies, visions, truths, vie for recognition by as many people as possible. Not one consensus, but a multiplicity of agreements are created by politicians around particular visions, particular truths. Although the democratic game claims to be geared to consensus, to the resolution of differences of opinion by public deliberation, there are inherent limits placed on this game, arising from the need to mobilize majorities so as to be able to serve particular power interests and engage in collective action. I have pointed out that political deliberation cannot last indefinitely, even when this means not giving (sufficient) recognition to a variety of standpoints. The reason is the need for ‘closure’ in terms of decisionmaking and action. The political field also admits of ways of closing the debate which have little to do with agreement, but are nevertheless legitimate because they involve intersubjectively acceptable procedures such as voting. I advanced these as possible constraints on the dialectical preconditions for argumentation in the political field (and I have tentatively related them to Rules 1 and 9). The main constraint on the dialectical preconditions for strategic maneuvering in the political field that I have suggested has to do with the multi-level process of justification that constitutes a legitimizing argument. As I have shown in the analysis, the protagonist legitimizes his claim by showing that his actions conform to systems of rule and that these systems are publicly justifiable; this is in addition to showing that he benefits from the public’s manifest consent. In itself, manifest consent, coming from shared beliefs, would not be enough: the public has to agree for the right reasons, i.e., shared agreements have to be publicly justifiable. (This, I suggest, can be investigated further in relation to Rule 6.) I have also suggested some field-specific opportunities for being persuasive in the political field, having to do with the nature of the audience, as a multiple, heterogeneous audience, often engaged in mediated quasi-interaction with political actors. I have said that sound strategic maneuvering in the political field, just as in any other field, has to do with the way in which the balance between dialectical obligations and rhetorical aims is maintained in argumentation, but, more specifically, with the way in which the contradictory demands of the political field are met: an orientation to the democratic ideal of representativeness and an orientation to power through the ability to mobilize. The orientation to the game of democratic representation involves, ideally, being a spokesperson for a particular standpoint or for a wide range of standpoints and interests of the population you claim to be representing. The orientation to the power game involves the ambition to mobilize the highest number by getting your message recognized by a majority. You can win more support if you are perceived as representing broader swathes of the population, which will make it more reasonable for you, as a politician, to
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invent or construct a majority that shares a number of beliefs, values and interests, and lay claim to representativeness of this maximally inclusive public, rather than attempt to speak in the name of any of the diverse and fragmented interest groups in a society or even acknowledge the existence and justification of competing positions. In my example, the ‘adjudicator’ was seen to be less of an impartial judge than a construct of the protagonist’s own making. This is because the adjudicator, or the electorate, as a heterogeneous aggregate of different and often incompatible views and options, was addressed as a unitary entity, the Romanian people, a construct strategically endowed by the protagonist with all the commitments to those values and beliefs that would help forward his own case. Such argumentative moves are part of the logic of the political field and cannot be dismissed as unsound merely on the basis of pointing out, for instance, that large parts of the electorate would not recognize themselves in the political message that is constructed on their behalf. The need to mobilize a majority in a world of mediated quasi-interaction will place constraints on the way the game of democratic representativeness can be played and will also create rhetorical opportunities for playing this game reasonably and successfully. Whether this in fact precludes ‘normal politics’ from being democratic in a substantive sense is another matter.
References Andone, C. (2008). Comments on ‘Legitimation and strategic maneuvering in the political field’. Argumentation 22: 419–421. Beetham, D. (1991). The legitimation of power. Basingstoke: MacMillan. Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power. Cambridge: Polity Press. Cârlan, I. A. (2007). Former communists condemning communism: Ethos, legitimacy and ad hominem argumentation. In A. Gâţă & A. Drăgan (Eds.), Communication and argumentation in the public sphere. Proceedings of the Conference Public Space vs Private Space (Vol. 1, Issue 1, pp. 67–87). Galaţi: Galati University Press. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Grootendorst, R. (1992). Argumentation, communication and fallacies. 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. (2002). Strategic maneuvering: Maintaining a delicate balance. In F. H. van Eemeren & P. Houtlosser (Eds.), Dialectic and rhetoric. The warp and woof of argumentation analysis. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic. Eemeren, F. H. van, Houtlosser, P. (2005). Theoretical construction and argumentative reality. An analytic model of critical discussion and conventionalized 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. Hamilton, Ontario: OSSA.
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Eemeren, F. H. van & Houtlosser, P. (2007). Coming to grips with argumentative discourse. In H. V. Hansen & R. C. Pinto (Eds.), Reason reclaimed. Essays in honor of J. Anthony Blair and Ralph H. Johnson. Newport News, VA: Vale Press. Habermas, J. (1976). Legitimation crisis. London: Heinemann. Habermas, J. (1990). Moral consciousness and communicative action. Cambridge: Polity Press. Habermas, J. (1996). Legitimation problems in the modern state. In W. Outhwaite (Ed.), The Habermas reader (pp. 248–265). Cambridge: Polity Press. Ieţcu-Fairclough, I. (2007). Populism and the Romanian Orange Revolution: A discourse-analytical perspective on the presidential election of December 2004. Studies in Language and Capitalism, 2(1), 31–74. Ieţcu-Fairclough, I. (2008a). Branding and strategic maneuvering in the Romanian presidential election of 2004. A critical discourse-analytical and pragma-dialectical perspective. Journal of Language and Politics, 7(3), 372–390. Ieţcu-Fairclough, I. (2008b). Legitimation and strategic maneuvering in the political field. Argumentation, 22, 399–417. Thompson, J. B. (1995). The media and modernity. A social theory of the media. Cambridge: Polity Press. Tonnard, Y. (2008). Comments on ‘Strategic maneuvering in political argumentation’. Argumentation, 22(3), 331–334. Zarefsky, D. (2008). Strategic maneuvering in political argumentation. Argumentation, 22(3), 317–330.
Notes 1. I am grateful to Norman Fairclough (University of Lancaster) and Alexandru Cârlan (SNSPA, Bucharest) for useful comments on various drafts of this paper. Cârlan (2007) has independently investigated the acceptability of ad hominem argumentation in the political field. 2. I have analyzed the radical populist political style of the Romanian President and his anticorruption discourse in various other papers (Ieţcu-Fairclough 2007, Ieţcu-Fairclough 2008a). 3. Andone (2008) questions whether this particular type of interaction is in fact an adjudication. She correctly points out that in legal adjudication the judge is neutral and impartial, and not just in relation to the contending parties, but also in relation to the matter to be resolved. She argues that, in my example, the people-as-adjudicator is not objective and impartial in either of these ways. Although I accept that there are differences between adjudication in the legal versus the political field, I would nevertheless like to maintain my analysis in terms of the concept of adjudication. The people may not be a neutral and impartial adjudicator, but this derives from the very logic of the political field, as I try to show. Moreover, the protagonist does his best to construct the adjudicator as neutral and objective in relation to the matter under discussion, and he exploits particularly those value commitments of the audience that can be said to be beyond particular allegiances to either of the two sides of the debate: justice, democracy, freedom, modernization, etc. In legal adjudication, the neutral and impartial judge can equally be held to a number of value commitments which transcend the particular interests of the two parties. In other words, the judge’s verdict, while impartial in a sense, is not value-free.
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4. In my view, the adjudication involved in electoral campaigns, where candidates contend for people’s votes, is different from the open-ended type of political argumentation that Zarefsky (2008) has in mind, in the sense that it does have temporal limits and a specific institutional format, including a ‘closure’ procedure.
Accusing someone of an inconsistency as a confrontational way of strategic manoeuvring Corina Andone
1.
Introduction
This paper examines accusations of inconsistency as a specific way of strategic manoeuvring that is to be reconstructed as part of the confrontation stage of a critical discussion. It investigates accusations of inconsistency in the context of the recent interest of the pragma-dialectical approach to account for the strategic function of moves in argumentative interactions. In the first part of the paper, accusations of inconsistency are approached from a speech act perspective by formulating identity and correctness conditions for the illocutionary act of accusation of inconsistency. I presume that when this illocutionary act is performed an inherent perlocutionary effect of acceptance is aimed at together with consecutive consequences deriving from it. In the second part of the paper, in order to arrive at a theoretically justified description of the consecutive consequences of the illocutionary act of accusation of inconsistency in an argumentative context, use is made of the dialectical profile of the confrontation stage derived from the ideal model of a critical discussion. In light of the moves that speakers are obliged or have the right to perform at this stage, a specific set of intended consecutive effects is identified. In the third part of the paper, I examine what happens in argumentative practice by describing how the strategic performance of the illocutionary act of accusation of inconsistency by an interviewer is aimed at acquiring the consecutive effect of making a politician retract his standpoint.
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2.
Accusations of inconsistency as illocutionary acts
The moves put forward in argumentative discourse are characterized, according to the pragma-dialectical approach (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004), as speech acts which serve a communicative purpose and an interactional purpose. In van Eemeren and Grootendorst’s view, the communicative aspects of language are expressed as attempts to bring about illocutionary effects and the interactional aspects as attempts to bring about perlocutionary effects. In the first part of this section, I will give a characterization of accusations of inconsistency as illocutionary acts that specifies what it means when language users consider an utterance an understandably and correctly performed accusation of inconsistency. My analysis will be guided by the four meta-theoretical principles constituting the methodological starting points of pragma-dialectics (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004: 52–57). The principle of functionalization is followed by characterizing accusations of inconsistency as illocutionary acts. In view of the principle of externalization, my focus is on the externalizable commitments that speakers undertake in putting forward an accusation of inconsistency. According to the principle of socialization, an accusation of inconsistency will be conceived of as a move that is made in reaction to another move put forward by another party in the discussion. The principle of dialectification allows for focusing on those aspects of accusations of inconsistency that are relevant to a regulated exchange that is aimed at resolving a difference of opinion on the merits.
2.1 Accusations of inconsistency as assertive illocutionary acts Accusing someone of an inconsistency amounts to the performance of a speech act belonging to the category of assertives, which implies that the speaker commits himself to the truth, or more generally, to the correctness of the proposition expressed (Searle 1969, van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004) and is supposed to have good grounds for performing it. In order to understand what is communicated when an accusation of inconsistency is put forward and what exactly counts as its correct performance, a set of identity and correctness conditions is needed. According to van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1984: 23), language users performing speech acts do not only have the intention to make the hearers understand the speech acts they perform, but also to get some kind of response, verbal or non-verbal. The view, proposed by van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1984), that these conditions have consequences for both speaker and addressee, in the sense that not only must the speaker fulfill them, but the addressee must also regard them as having been fulfilled in order
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to consider an utterance as the felicitous performance of an accusation of inconsistency, allocates to the addressee an active role in the performance of the speech act. The active role of the addressee is important in the specification of the perlocutionary effects. An utterance is an instance of an accusation of inconsistency when its identity conditions, i.e. the essential condition and the propositional content condition, are fulfilled. The essential condition is formulated as follows: An accusation of inconsistency counts as raising a charge against an addressee for having committed himself to both p and –p (or informal equivalents thereof) in an attempt to challenge the addressee to provide a response that answers the charge. As Kauffeld (1998: 252) explains, in paradigm cases of accusations the speaker tries to impose on the accused an obligation to answer for an alleged offence. In his view, “the accuser must openly speak with an intention which resembles the purpose speakers have in asking questions.” The same applies in the case of an accusation of inconsistency: it makes no sense for a speaker to perform an accusation of inconsistency just for informative purposes. Failure to meet the essential condition for an accusation of inconsistency means that the utterance in which a charge is put forward against an addressee for having committed himself to two inconsistent statements is not an attempt at securing a response that answers the charge raised. In that case, the speaker may have performed a different illocutionary act, for example a blame or an observation. The propositional content condition is that, in the speaker’s view, The addressee has committed himself to both p and –p (or informal equivalents thereof). The conflicting commitments may refer to an incompatibility between the statements of the addressee in the past and the present concerning the same issue or to an incompatibility between his words and his behaviour, reconstructable in terms of propositional commitments. Moreover, an accusation of inconsistency presupposes, and comes as a reaction to, a previous assertion made by the person accused or a non-verbal act. If the propositional content condition is not fulfilled, this means either that the speaker has not expressed a proposition or that he has expressed a proposition that does not imply that the addressee has committed himself to two inconsistent assertions. According to van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1984: 43), in the first
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case, the assertion put forward is void. In the second case, the speaker may have expressed a speech act with a different illocutionary force. The felicitous performance of the illocutionary act of accusation of inconsistency requires furthermore the fulfillment of a set of correctness conditions. The preparatory conditions stipulate that a. the speaker believes that the addressee will accept that he has committed an inconsistency; b. the speaker believes that the addressee will acknowledge that the presence of an inconsistency obstructs the argumentative exchange he and his interlocutor are engaged in; c. the speaker believes that the addressee will take on the obligation to provide a response that answers the charge of inconsistency. If the first preparatory condition for the illocutionary act of accusation of inconsistency is not met, this implies that the speaker believes that the addressee will not accept that he has committed an inconsistency. In that case, the performance of the illocutionary act is superfluous, as it is a waste of time to perform an accusation of inconsistency if the speaker believes that the addressee will not even accept having committed an inconsistency. If the second preparatory condition is not met, this implies that the speaker does not believe that the addressee acknowledges that committing an inconsistency is an obstruction to the argumentative exchange. In that case, the performance of the illocutionary act is again superfluous, as it is a waste of effort to raise a charge when one already expects that the addressee will not acknowledge any wrongdoing, for example because he has a different view of inconsistency according to which inconsistency is not an obstruction. If the third preparatory condition is not met, this implies that the speaker does not believe that the addressee will take on the obligation to respond in answer to the charge. In that case, the performance of the illocutionary act is pointless. The sincerity conditions stipulate that a. the speaker believes that the addressee has committed an inconsistency; b. the speaker believes that the presence of an inconsistency constitutes an obstruction to the exchange; c. the speaker believes that a response that answers the charge needs to be provided. If the first sincerity condition is not met, this implies that the speaker does not hold the belief that there is an inconsistency on the part of the addressee. In that
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case, the speaker acts as if the addressee has committed an inconsistency, whereas there is no inconsistency. The act of accusation of inconsistency can be described as a case of lying. Failure to fulfill the second sincerity condition implies that the speaker does not believe that the presence of an inconsistency is an obstruction to the argumentative exchange. In that case, the speaker wrongfully acts as if he believes that there is an obstruction, whereas there is none. Failure to fulfill the third sincerity condition implies that the speaker does not believe that an answer to the accusation of inconsistency is necessary. In that case, by making an accusation he behaves as if he believes that an answer is necessary. In so doing, he gives a false impression to the addressee. The illocutionary act of accusation of inconsistency is happy if the addressee understands the propositional content and the illocutionary force of the speech act performed – i.e. the speaker achieves the illocutionary effect. In addition, the speaker intends to achieve perlocutionary effects related to the interactional aspect of this form of language use.1 In the next subsection, perlocutionary effects are discussed as a contribution to the achievement of the interactional concern by maintaining the distinction made by van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1984) between the inherent perlocutionary effect of acceptance and consecutive consequences deriving from it.
2.2 The inherent perlocutionary effect of an accusation of inconsistency The formulation of the essential condition that must be fulfilled for an utterance to count as an accusation of inconsistency connects the performance of the illocutionary act with the perlocutionary effect of securing a response that answers the charge raised by the speaker against the addressee.2 In what follows, a response from the addressee will be interpreted as a consecutive consequence that the addressee is required to perform in light of the achievement of the inherent perlocutionary effect of acceptance in case this effect has occurred. In van Eemeren and Grootendorst’s view, all performances of speech acts are aimed at achieving an inherent perlocutionary effect or a minimal effect, which consists in the acceptance of the speech act by the addressee and consecutive perlocutionary effects or optimal effects, which comprise all other relevant consequences of the speech act.3 In the case of an accusation of inconsistency, this distinction shows that acquiring a response from the addressee presupposes that the addressee accepts the illocutionary act at a preceding stage and, moreover, it helps to indicate how the addressee can become committed to carrying out consecutive effects.
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The nature of both kinds of effects, inherent effects and consecutive effects, can be clarified by the threefold distinction made van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1984) closely linked to their view on argumentative discourse. The first distinction pertains to accidental and intended effects. According to the principle of externalization, the interest lies in the verbal expressions put forward with certain intentions communicated verbally in the utterance performed. The second distinction made marks a separation between those effects brought about on the basis of understanding the illocutionary act and those brought about in a different way. According to the characterization of the illocutionary act, understanding the speech act performed is preliminary to the achievement of perlocutionary effects. The third distinction refers to effects brought about on the basis of the rational considerations of the addressee and effects that are not the result of rational decision-making. Only those effects that are brought about on rational grounds need to be taken into account, in line with the pragma-dialectical interests. Van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1984: 57) point out that in the context of an argumentative interaction acceptance on the part of the addressee amounts to the performance of the illocutionary act of acceptance, which entails interactional obligations in respect of his further behavior, verbal or non-verbal.4 When an accusation of inconsistency is performed, acceptance involves two aspects: (a) the performance by the addressee of the speech act of assent by which it is admitted5 that the speech act expressed by the person putting forward the accusation was understandably and correctly performed and (b) an immediate commitment of the addressee to provide a response to the charged raised, as indicated in the essential condition of the illocutionary act of accusation of inconsistency. In the next section, I will specify a set of analytically relevant consecutive consequences of the illocutionary act of accusation of inconsistency – constituting the analytically relevant responses to an accusation of inconsistency – that is limited to the kind of responses that answer the charge of inconsistency in an argumentative exchange and that can contribute towards resolving a difference of opinion. I do so starting from the moves that parties are obliged or have the right to perform in the confrontation stage of a critical discussion as shown in the dialectical profile of the confrontation stage proposed by Mohammed (2008) in line with the ideal model of a critical discussion (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1984).
3.
Consecutive consequences of an accusation of inconsistency
Besides the restriction to consecutive consequences that are intended, based on the understanding by the addressee of the force and content of the illocutionary act performed and on rational considerations on the part of the addressee, a fur-
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ther limitation on what counts as a consecutive consequence of an accusation of inconsistency can be specified with the help of the moves indicated in the dialectical profile of the confrontation stage of a critical discussion.
3.1
Analytically relevant consecutive consequences of an accusation of inconsistency
In argumentative practice, the responses to an accusation in general can be diverse. Kauffeld (1998) suggests that admission of guilt, denial or justifications are all expected responses to an accusation. Similarly, Drew (1978: 5) notes that “it routinely happens that if an utterance is heard as an accusation, then this can set some sort of expectation concerning what kind(s) of utterances will, or, should follow: that is, there is a conventional procedure whereby the class(es) to which an utterance following after an accusation can be expected to belong to is limited to denials/acceptances/modifiers.”6 In order to give a methodical and theoretically motivated account of the kinds of responses that may occur in answer to an accusation of inconsistency in the confrontation stage of a critical discussion, use is made of the dialectical profile of this stage. Dialectical profiles constitute a normative representation of the sequences of moves – or types of speech acts – that each party in turn can make at a particular stage of the critical discussion procedure. As van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2007b) explain, they represent a finite sequential pattern of the analytically relevant moves that participants in a critical discussion can make to achieve an outcome of a particular stage of the discussion. Consequently, specifying the consecutive consequences of an accusation of inconsistency in the confrontation stage amounts to indicating a finite number of analytically relevant options that an addressee has in response to an accusation of inconsistency. In argumentative practice these moves can have both sound and fallacious instantiations. Specifying the analytically relevant responses to an accusation of inconsistency is done in view of the slot that the accusation of inconsistency fills in the dialectical profile. The following representation shows the first three turns in the dialectical profile of the confrontation stage (Mohammed 2008: 385):7
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1 D1
+/p
2 D2
rud/p ?/(+/p)
3 D1
+/p’ maintain +/p retract +/p (exit discussion)8
In the simplest case of a non-mixed dispute, one of the slots that the accusation of inconsistency can fill in the dialectical profile of the confrontation stage is the slot of casting doubt in turn 2. The accusation is performed by an opponent in reaction to a standpoint brought forward by a proponent9 in the previous turn, whose position contradicts positions he assumed or behavior reconstructable in terms of propositional commitments that he manifested on a different occasion in connection with the same issue. By advancing an accusation of inconsistency, the opponent shows that he does not accept the standpoint put forward by the proponent. Two possible intended effects stand out: either the proponent retracts his previously advanced standpoint or he maintains it.10 The performance of either move by the proponent of the standpoint is conditional on his acceptance of the speech act of accusation of inconsistency performed by the opponent. Once he has accepted this speech act, he has assumed a commitment to fulfill the intended consecutive consequences. As specified before, the inconsistency in connection with which the accusation is raised concerns assuming presently a position that contradicts positions assumed earlier or behavior manifested on a different occasion. Exactly when a move, in this case an accusation of inconsistency, counts as sound in general depends partly on understanding what is meant by “a different occasion.”11 Van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2007a: 66) explain that from a pragma-dialectical perspective, “on a different occasion” can be defined as “in a different critical discussion than the present one.” As a consequence of this view, from the pragma-dialectical perspective, an inconsistency between the position expressed presently and positions expressed on a different occasion or behavior manifested on a different occasion is relevant only if it involves an inconsistency in “one and the same critical discussion” (van Eemeren and Houtlosser 2007a: 66). The proponent is allowed to hold a different point of view, even one that contradicts the one presently expressed, in a different critical discussion, but he may not do so in one and the same critical discussion. In argumentative reality, a critical discussion does not exist. According to van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2007a: 66),
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what should count as “one and the same critical discussion” ultimately depends on whether it is theoretically as well as empirically justified to reconstruct particular pieces of argumentative discourse as being part of one and the same critical discussion.
In order to show how the reconstruction of two or more pieces of argumentative discourse can be justified, van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2007a: 67) have suggested four conditions that must be fulfilled so that an inconsistency between starting points presently proposed by the protagonist and starting points proposed on a different occasion by the same party is an inconsistency in a sub-discussion at the opening stage in one and the same critical discussion. The four conditions are as follows: (1) all pieces of argumentative discourse are aimed at resolving the same difference of opinion, (2) all pieces have the same procedural starting points, (3) all pieces have the same material starting points and (4) the parties involved assume the same positions and the same discussion roles in all pieces of confrontational argumentative discourse. In a similar vein, the following two conditions can be proposed that must be fulfilled for an inconsistency between the position presently adopted and the position or behavior adopted earlier on the same issue to be justifiably reconstructed as part of the confrontation stage of one and the same critical discussion: (1) the position advanced relates to the same issue in all pieces of argumentative discourse and (2) the discussants maintain the role of proponent and opponent in all pieces of argumentative discourse. An accusation of inconsistency advanced in the confrontation stage amounts to an admissible move in general when there is an inconsistency on the part of one party that concerns a contradiction between his positions or between his position and his behavior reconstructable in terms of propositional commitments in the same critical discussion.12
3.2 Strategic fulfillment of the consecutive consequences The recent pragma-dialectical view (van Eemeren and Houtlosser 2007a: 57–60) stipulates that discussants, at every stage of a critical discussion, including the confrontation stage, are oriented toward achieving the final goal of contributing to the resolution of their difference of opinion by critically testing their points of view and, at the same time, are interested in doing so to their own advantage. In their pursuit to achieve a dialectical aim, that is the aim to resolve the dispute, and a rhetorical aim, that is the aim to resolve the difference of opinion to their own favor, parties employ what van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2002) have called strategic maneuvering. The term is used to refer to the attempt of the arguers to reconcile their concern to be reasonable with their concern to be effective. Each
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move made by the discussants is realized in such a way as to influence the result of the dispute to their own favor by making a choice of topics that may lead to reaching a favorable outcome, by adapting the move to the demands of the addressee in a way that responds to the preceding move and by using particular presentational devices that enable the continuation of the discussion. When the opponent advances an accusation of inconsistency and the proponent responds to it by performing a move that amounts to the retraction or maintenance of the standpoint expressed earlier, both parties have the opportunity to maneuver strategically with the aim of resolving the discussion while realizing their persuasive intent. Most beneficial for the opponent would be to try and lead the proponent to respond to the accusation of inconsistency by retracting his advanced point of view, because it would end the potential discussion at the start. A possible realization of this move in argumentative practice can be the following: 1. P: 2. O:
I think we should introduce higher fees in universities. How do you reconcile that with your socialist views? You have been a socialist for 20 years now. Isn’t it fair to maintain your long-time beliefs rather than adopt a position that is at odds with your beliefs?
In this example, the opponent calls into question the point of view of the proponent, because it is contrary to previous positions regarding the same matter. Instead of requiring a justification for the inconsistent position, the opponent prefers to attempt to lead the proponent to retract his new point of view, as that is only to the benefit of the opponent. In this instantiation, the aspect of strategic manoeuvring that comes to the fore is the selection of a topic that is most helpful for the opponent to achieve his intended goal. A second opportunity for the opponent is to try to lead the proponent to maintain his standpoint, particularly in those cases in which he is certain that the proponent cannot plausibly maintain contradictory positions or behavior contrary to his position, so that he will have to retract his position in the second instance. The following example illustrates such a case: 1. P: I think we should introduce higher fees in universities. 2. O: How do you reconcile that with your socialist views? You have been a socialist for 20 years now. How do you justify your new position?
The proponent, too, has space to respond to an accusation of inconsistency to his own advantage. In case he cannot but perform a move of retraction, one way to maneuver to his benefit is to regard the invitation to retract as an intermediary goal toward performing a move of reformulation of his position.13 By choosing to reformulate, the proponent gives the impression that it is precisely what the oppo-
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nent wants and he advances a position that is consistent with positions expressed in the same discussion. He can do so by bringing into the foreground the use of a presentational device. In the following example, the proponent retracts his initial position and he reformulates it in a way that suggests that this what he meant: 1. P: 2. O: 3. P:
I think we should introduce higher fees in universities. How do you reconcile that with your socialist views? You have been a socialist for 20 years now. Isn’t it fair to maintain your long-time beliefs rather than adopt a position that is at odds with your beliefs? I do not believe that we are in the financial need of higher fees, but I think that we should introduce fees that are closer to the level of fees in other European countries. It is important how you define higher fees. Students pay now low fees for their studies compared to the fees in other countries.
Another possibility for the proponent is to maneuver strategically in fulfilling the opponent’s aim to have the proponent maintain his position. The proponent can do this by giving the impression that there is nothing to maintain by choosing instead to perform a usage declarative. In argumentative practice, such a responsive move can be realized in the following way: 1. P: 2. O: 3. P:
I think we should introduce higher fees in universities. How do you reconcile that with your socialist views? You have been a socialist for 20 years now. How do you justify your new position? Well, I mean to say that students who constantly fail exams should pay higher fees.
The proponent makes use of precization in order to clarify his position and facilitate the addressee’s understanding of his position. In so doing, he adapts himself to the perspective of the addressee by creating the impression that he gives a relevant response to the question of the opponent. When a proponent maneuvers strategically, there is to a certain extent a discrepancy between the expressed goal of the opponent and the response of the proponent. The discrepancy is achieved by giving prominence to one of the three aspects of strategic maneuvering in a way that conducts the discussion toward his benefit. In the following section, the analysis of an argumentative exchange reconstructed as part of the confrontation stage will demonstrate how the proponent of a standpoint strategically retracts when an opponent accuses him of holding an inconsistent standpoint.
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4.
Example
A suitable example to show the opportunities for maneuvring in connection with an accusation of inconsistency has been selected from the transcript of an interview presented on Politics Show on BBC on November 12, 2006. Jon Sopel, the presenter of this political show, interviewed a senior British politician, William Hague, in order to hold him accountable for his decisions and actions.14 William Hague was at the time the former leader of the British Conservative Party and current Conservative Shadow Foreign Secretary. The example below, to be reconstructed as part of the confrontation stage of a critical discussion, is concerned with the issue of the introduction of biometric identity cards that are potentially necessary for the security of the country.15 Jon Sopel: And Labor say the big thing that you could do to help would be to support identity cards. It’s fair to say that this is an issue that your party has rather flip flopped on isn’t it. William Hague: Well it’s… I think it’s become clearer over time where we stand on this, let’s put it that way, because we’ve got the government adopting an identity card scheme, but one that is so bureaucratic and involves a vast data base and this is the government of serial catastrophes when it comes to data bases as we all know, costing now, according to the London School of Economics, up to twenty billion pounds and we said that if some of that money was spent instead on an effective border police and strengthened surveillance of terrorist suspects, and strengthening special branch and things like that, we’d actually get a lot further…. (interjection)….having identity cards. Jon Sopel: Isn’t that a detail of the legislation. I mean you supported identity cards back in December 2004, less than two years ago. William Hague: We supported, I and Michael Howard supported the principle of those. Subject to how the details were worked out. The details are not impressive and the grasp of detail and the ability to control the costs of the current government is so terrible, that it’s not a scheme that we can support.
In this argumentative exchange, the interviewer points out that as concerns the issue of the introduction of biometric identity cards in Britain the Conservatives, represented here by William Hague, have acted in contradictory ways. By saying that it’s become clearer over time where we stand on this, Hague indirectly admits that seemingly contradictory positions have been held, but he gives a number of
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reasons why it has been so. Such motives refer to the incapacity of the government to deal adequately with the problem and that stands, in Hague’s view, as a good explanation for their changing views. In reply to Hague, Sopel classifies the reasons as mere details of the legislation and quite explicitly accuses Hague of holding inconsistent positions: you supported identity cards back in December 2004, less than two years ago. The inconsistency that Hague is accused of can be reconstructed as belonging to the confrontation stage of one and the same critical discussion. Back in December 2004, the standpoint advanced by Hague concerned the same issue related to the introduction of identity cards. At that time, Hague had been the proponent of a point of view according to which the Conservatives support the introduction of identity cards. At the time of the interview, Hague is the proponent of a standpoint according to which the Conservatives do not support the introduction of identity cards. The fact that the two standpoints are part of one and the same critical discussion is important, as it shows that the interviewer is fully entitled to express an accusation of inconsistency. By accusing the politician of holding inconsistent positions in relation to one and the same issue, the interviewer instantiates the analytically relevant move of doubt about Hague’s statements and assumes in this way the role of the opponent in the discussion. The interviewer aims at making Hague admit the propositional content of the accusation and retract his current standpoint. The retraction would be favorable to the interviewer, as the discussion would end at this point. In addition, the interviewer chooses an argumentative move that is directly relevant to the audience, as the issue of the introduction of biometric identity cards affects every British citizen, but such a choice puts the politician in difficulty. It is intended at making Hague admit in front of the audience that on this issue the Conservatives have not acted in a consistent manner. Finally, the formulation of the accusation contributes to this end. The interviewer advances a rhetorical question through which he invites the politician to accept that the reasons he provides are ‘mere details of the legislation’ and they do not entitle the politician to change his mind. In reply to the interviewer, the politician expresses his standpoint on the issue of the introduction of biometric identity cards and acts in this way as the proponent in the discussion. Within the boundaries of the restrictions imposed by the opponent and in light of the specifications of the consecutive consequences of the illocutionary act of accusation of inconsistency, the politician resorts to a topical choice that instantiates the move of retraction. Although the move of retraction may not seem the best to be performed, the way in which he adapts to the audience and the way in which he formulates the move in response to criticism prove
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to be to his advantage. The favorable outcome is determined by giving a particular vital interpretation of his standpoint and withdrawing it in another interpretation. By recourse to the presentational device of dissociation – through which he distinguishes between the principle and the practice of introducing biometric identity cards – the politician shows that his position is related to the details of putting the idea into practice. In connection with these details, he shows that there is no change of position after all. The difference of opinion about biometric identity cards ends at this point.
5.
Conclusion
In this paper, I have examined accusations of inconsistency as a way of strategic manoeuvring that is to be reconstructed as part of the confrontation stage of a critical discussion. In this context, the focus has been on cases when the opponent accuses the proponent of holding a position that is contradictory with positions he held earlier or with behavior he manifested on a different occasion. I have concentrated on demonstrating that accusations of inconsistency as illocutionary acts are intended not only to produce illocutionary, but also perlocutionary effects. Starting from the distinction between acceptance as an inherent perlocutionary effect and consecutive consequences deriving from it, I have specified the consecutive consequences of accusations of inconsistency in view of the moves that parties are obliged or have the right to perform at the confrontation stage. The analysis of an argumentative exchange has demonstrated how the opponent can achieve an accusation of inconsistency in a favorable manner and how he constrains and opens up opportunities to the proponent to respond to the accusation by achieving the consecutive consequence of retraction. Note: This paper has benefited from the critical comments of Peter Houtlosser.
References Cohen, L. J. (1995). An essay on belief and acceptance. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Drew, P. (1978). Accusations: the occasioned use of members’ knowledge of ‘religious geography’ in describing events. The Journal of the British Sociological Association, 12(1), 1–22. 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: Foris. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Grootendorst, R. (1992). Argumentation, communication and fallacies. A pragma-dialectical perspective. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.
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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. (2002). Strategic maneuvring 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. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2007a). Kinship: The relationship between Johnstone’s ideas about philosophical argument and the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation. Philosophy & Rhetoric, 40(1), 51–70. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2007b). Seizing the occasion: Parameters for analyzing ways of strategic manoeuvring. In F. H. van Eemeren, A. J. Blair, Ch. Willard & B. Garssen (Eds.), Proceedings of the Sixth Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation (pp. 375–380). Amsterdam: Sic Sat. Hamblin, C. L. (1970). The effect of when it’s said. Theoria, 17(3), 249–263. Kauffeld, F. J. (1998). Presumption and the distribution of argumentative burdens in acts of proposing and accusing. Argumentation, 12(2), 245–266. Mohammed, D. (2008). Institutional insights for analyzing strategic manoeuvring in the British Prime Minister’s Question Time. Argumentation, 22(3), 377–393. Rogers, A. (1978). Remarks on the analysis of assertion and the conversational role of speech acts. In J. J. Jaeger, A. C. Woodbury, F. Ackerman, C. Chiarello, O. D. Gensler, J. Kingston, et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, February 18–20, 1978 (pp. 190–201). Berkeley, California: Berkeley Linguistics Society. Searle, J. (1969). Speech acts. An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Notes 1. An account of the specification of the communicative aspects and of the interactional aspects of various forms of language use can be found in van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1984). 2. Searle (1969: 71) suggests that the perlocutionary effect to be achieved by the speaker is to be included in the formulation of the essential condition of an illocutionary act such as a directive when he states that ‘requesting is, as a matter of its essential condition, an attempt to get a hearer to do something.” The attempt to get a hearer to do something is referred to as the perlocutionary effect of the illocutionary act of requesting. Van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1984) formulate the essential condition of the speech act of argumentation by connecting it with an attempt at achieving the perlocutionary effect of convincing. These authors have made it their principle that in the case of all illocutionary acts, including assertives, the intended perlocutionary effects are the core elements in the formulation of the essential condition. 3. By using these terms, it is suggested that when a speaker performs a speech act he wants to obtain minimally the perlocutionary effect of acceptance and optimally he wants to bring about other consequences as an extension of the acceptance. The consecutive consequences are specific to the speech act concerned.
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4. Van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1984: 71) provide a set of identity and correctness conditions for the speech act of acceptance of argumentation. The propositional content condition includes the opinion to which the argumentation relates. The essential condition specifies that the utterance must count as an acceptance […] of the expressed opinion, i.e. as an expression of agreement with the standpoint of the person advancing the argumentation and hence as an expression of the success of the attempt to convince. The preparatory condition attributes to the speaker the obligation to believe that the person who performs the act of argumentation makes a serious attempt to convince him of the acceptability or unacceptability of an expressed opinion. The sincerity conditions stipulate that the speaker believes that the propositions expressed in the argumentation are acceptable, that the argumentative constellation is a justification or refutation of the expressed opinion and that on these grounds the expressed opinion must be accepted or rejected, as the case may be. Cohen (1995) likewise explains that acceptance is often a “speech act of assent whereby a person may orally (or in writing) agree to the truth of a proposition whether or not this oral (or written) agreement accords with his actual state of mind.” Such agreement, in his view, is usually tacit. Although not explicitly concerned with explaining how the act of acceptance entails commitments, Cohen (1995: 23) points out that strictly speaking, “people are held responsible and accountable for what they accept or fail to accept.” Cohen (1995: 27) remarks that once a speaker makes clear that he has accepted a proposition, he implies acceptance also to its necessary consequences and he creates a presumption about how he will act as far as he knows these consequences. This observation coincides with what Hamblin (1970) explains with regard to commitments. Hamblin points out that as soon as commitments are incurred, they entitle speakers to hold each other accountable for what they have expressed and for the consequences of their acts. 5. Rogers (1978) refers to the act of accepting as amounting to a tacit admittance by the addressee that he understood the speech act, that he recognizes its performance as correct and that he admits it to the common ground of the conversation in which he is involved. 6. By modifiers, Drew refers to justifications and excuses. 7. The dialectical profile of the confrontation stage specifies seven turns of dialectical moves that are analytically relevant to the achievement of the dialectical goal of the confrontation stage. In this paper, I situate accusations of inconsistency and responses to such accusations in a non-mixed dispute. Therefore, it is enough to show only the first three turns of the dialectical profile. 8. D1 and D2 represent the discussants in a critical discussion. +/p stands for a positive standpoint concerning proposition p. ?(+/p) represents doubt over the positive standpoint. Rud/p is a request for usage declarative concerning the proposition p. +/p’ is a reformulation of the positive standpoint by using a usage declarative. 9. Because the move of accusation of inconsistency is situated in the confrontation stage in which the roles of protagonist and antagonist have not yet been distributed, the party who puts forward a standpoint is here referred to as a proponent and the party who reacts to it is an opponent. 10. In argumentative practice, the slots of retraction and maintaining can be filled, for example, by denial, retraction or maintenance of a standpoint. Denial, retraction and maintenance refer
Accusing someone of an inconsistency as a confrontational way of strategic manoeuvring 169
to the speech acts that fill the two slots, which, coincidentally in the case of retraction and maintaining, bear the same name as the name attributed to the slot. 11. An accusation of inconsistency is not always fallacious, i.e. a tu quoque move. A move is never fallacious in itself. For each move, general soundness conditions need to be formulated in order to determine whether this particular instantiation of the move – in a particular context – represents or violates the relevant norm, i.e. discussion rule. 12. More specific soundness conditions can be suggested that specify when a move is sound in a specific argumentative activity type where the move is performed. 13. In the dialectical profile of the confrontation stage, reformulation follows retraction. 14. The aims of a political interview can be as diverse as to hold a politician to account, to inform the public over decisions and actions that have public implications or to entertain the public. Given the pragma-dialectical interest in the strategic function of ways of manoeuvring put forward in various argumentative activity types, in this paper the focus is on the argumentative exchanges that occur as part of the activity type of a political interview in which a politician is held accountable for his decisions or actions. 15. The transcript of the interview is provided as published on the website of the BBC. The peculiarities of oral presentation are irrelevant for my analysis.
Manoeuvring strategically in Prime Minister’s Question Time Dima Mohammed
1.
Introduction
Knowledge of the characteristics of the institutionalised contexts in which argumentative exchanges occur provides significant insights for the examination of these exchanges. This paper focuses on the institutionalised aspects of argumentative discourse in light of the pragma-dialectical (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1984, 2004; van Eemeren & Houtlosser, 2003, 2007c) pursuit of a more empirically adequate account of argumentative practice. An important step in this pursuit is the introduction of the concept of argumentative activity types (van Eemeren & Houtlosser, 2005).1 After accounting for the arguers’ empirical concern of persuasiveness, through the concept of strategic manoeuvring (van Eemeren & Houtlosser, 1999, 2007b), the concept of argumentative activity types has been introduced in order to account for the institutionalised aspects of argumentative practice (van Eemeren & Houtlosser, 2007a). Activity types characterise types of argumentative discourse by situating argumentative exchanges in their specific more or less formal institutionalised contexts. Such a characterisation is essential, given that the features of such contexts provide opportunities and impose constraints on the production of argumentative discourse. The integration of institutional insights into the pragma-dialectical framework is beneficial to both the framework and the institutionalised argumentative practice concerned. The integration makes the framework more suitable for examining argumentative practices; it allows for taking the characteristics of institutional contexts into account, leading to a more empirically adequate and critically insightful examination of argumentative exchanges. Such an examination has the potential to improve the examined practice, as it highlights the potential link between critical reasonableness and institutional effectiveness of an institutionalised argumentative practice. In this paper, I aim at creating an adequate theoretical basis for a
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systematic integration of institutional insights into the pragma-dialectical method. For that purpose, I shall discuss the theoretical concepts of strategic manoeuvring, argumentative activity types and dialectical profiles in light of their contribution to the promoted integration. A case in point for illustrating the merits of such integration will be Prime Minister’s Question Time in the British House of Commons.
2.
Merits for integrating institutional insights into the pragma-dialectical approach
The more empirically adequate account of institutionalised argumentative practice, as a result of the integration of institutional insights into the pragma-dialectical framework, sets the ground for a critically insightful examination that is beneficial for the institution concerned. In institutions where institutional aims are achieved through argumentative exchanges, it seems sensible to assume that the critical testing of points of view through argumentation is instrumental (or even crucial) to the achievement of institutional aims. That makes the results of the pragma-dialectical examination of the critical reasonableness of institutionalised argumentative exchanges highly indicative of the quality of the institutional procedures. To illustrate this point, let us examine the argumentative practice of Prime Minister’s Question Time in the British House of Commons as an example of an institutionalised argumentative practice, the examination of which within a pragma-dialectical framework is indicative of the success or failure of the argumentative exchanges to achieve the institutional aims they are supposed to promote. Prime Minister’s Question Time in the British House of Commons is the weekly session in the Parliament of the United Kingdom in which the Prime Minister provides oral answers to the questions of his fellow Members of Parliament. The aim of the session is to hold the government to account (House of Commons Information Office, 2005; Rogers & Walter, 2006). This aim is realised through question-answer exchanges pertaining to issues that fall under the responsibility of the Prime Minister as the head of government. Even though, on the surface, Question Time seems to be an information-seeking session, it is in fact an argumentative political exchange that constitutes a mini-debate over the performance of the government (Wilson, 1990; Beard, 2000; House of Commons Information Office, 2005; Rogers & Walter, 2006). The performance of the government is controversial: while the Prime Minister and the government’s ministers are in favour of a positive evaluation of the performance of the government, the opposition Members of Parliament are at least challenging this positive evaluation, but are also often in favour of a negative evaluation.2 It is precisely this controversy that lies behind question-answer ex-
Manoeuvring strategically in Prime Minister’s Question Time 173
changes in Question Time. As the Members of Parliament and the Prime Minister exchange questions and answers concerning the plans and policies of the government, they, in fact, express and defend their points of view in this controversy. It is through the discussion of the different points of view adopted by Members of Parliament in this controversy that the institutional aim of Question Time is achieved. The argumentative exchanges concerning the policies, plans and actions of the government provide a continuous evaluation of the performance of the government; the government’s performance is kept under scrutiny as the means to hold it to account. Ideally, the argumentative discussion of the plans, policies and actions of the government needs to be governed by the norm of critical testing. In reality, however, the more argumentative exchanges comply with the norm of critical testing, as a means to scrutinise the performance of the government, the more the government is subject to scrutiny, and the better it is held to account. The norm of critical testing can – in that sense – be regarded instrumental to the achievement of institutional aims, and the assessment of the critical reasonableness of the argumentative exchanges can be indicative of the extent to which the institutional aims of such exchanges are achieved.
3.
Argumentative activity types and the analysis of institutionalised argumentative exchanges
The characterisation of institutionalised argumentative practices as argumentative activity types provides necessary general guidance for the reconstruction of institutionalised argumentative exchanges in terms of a critical discussion, as the first step in a pragma-dialectical analysis and evaluation. Based on a careful examination, the institutionalised argumentative practice is characterised in terms of four elements that correspond to the four stages of a critical discussion. The practice is characterised in terms of its initial situation, starting points, argumentative means and the way in which the outcome is determined, in parallel to the confrontation, opening, argumentation and concluding stages of a critical discussion respectively (van Eemeren & Houtlosser, 2005). Even though the characterisation is intended, mainly, to assist the analysis of argumentative practices that occur in institutionalised contexts, the characterisation has also the advantage of putting the pragma-dialectical analysis and evaluation of institutionalised argumentative practice in perspective. A proper characterisation highlights the merits of a pragma-dialectical examination of the institutionalised conventional practice, by emphasising the instrumentality of the critical testing procedure to the achievement of institutional aims.
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Prior to the characterisation of an institutionalised argumentative practice as activity types, it is useful to define the activity type concerned. A proper definition of an activity types needs to define the institutionalised argumentative practice in terms of three main elements: the initial difference of opinion, the institutional aim and the way in which the resolution of the initial difference of opinion contributes to the achievement of institutional aims. For example, the argumentative practice in Prime Minister’s Question Time in the British House of Commons can be defined as: the argumentative activity that starts from a difference of opinion concerning the performance of the government, and aims at holding the government to account, through a continuous evaluation of its performance. The definition of an activity type is important. Not only does it highlight the instrumentality of critical testing to the achievement of institutional aims, but it also clearly defines the subject of the intended pragma-dialectical examination as those argumentative exchanges that occur as part of an institutional practice. The latter is vital as it eliminates the confusion that could result from mistaking the activity type to describe the whole institutional practice of an institution. Following the definition, and based on a careful examination of the argumentative practice of Question Time, this activity type can be characterised in terms of the four stages of a critical discussion. The initial situation of Question Time can be characterised as a mixed difference of opinion concerning a proposition evaluating the performance of the government, for example, that the government’s performance is up to standard. As starting points, Question Time has clear procedural rules and assignment of roles. The rules of Question Time make it clear that the Prime Minister is the main protagonist of the positive standpoint, since he is expected to always defend his government. The Members of Parliament from the Opposition and the leader of the Opposition in particular are conventionally the protagonists of the negative standpoint. The rules and conventions of Parliament make it also clear what kinds of contributions are allowable: the Members of Parliament pose questions and the Prime Minister provides answer. Furthermore, questions must conform to Parliamentary conventions regarding Parliamentary language and respect for the Crown, the judiciary and Members of the two Houses of Parliament. Questions must always relate to a matter for which the Prime Minister is responsible, as the head of government; they may not, for example, touch on activities in his capacity as a party leader or member. The argumentative means allowed for the parties are also determined by the rules and conventions of Question Time. In Question Time, the Members of Parliament need to advance their argumentation in the form of a question, and the Prime Minister should formulate his argumentation in the form of an answer. Every question posed by a Member of Parliament usually advances an implicit
Manoeuvring strategically in Prime Minister’s Question Time 175
argument in support of either a positive or a negative point of view in relation to the proposition the performance of the government is up to standard. The implicit arguments advanced by the Members of Parliament need to relate to the plans, policies and actions of the government. Conventionally, Members of Parliament anticipate that their arguments are faced by, at least, doubt, and argue in support of them. Consequently, every question provides not only an argument in support of the main (positive or negative) standpoint, but also constitutes the initiation of a sub-discussion concerning the evaluation of a certain plan, policy or action of the government. In other words, every question advances a sub-standpoint, in which an attitude either in favour or against a certain plan, policy or action of the government is expressed. Together with the answer that follows, the question constitutes a sub-discussion pertaining to the sub-standpoint advanced as an argument in defence of the main standpoint. At the end of the argumentative discussion in Question Time, it is to be determined whether the difference of opinion concerning the main standpoints is resolved; usually however, the resolution remains implicit.3 The example below illustrates how the characterisation of the activity type of Question Time provides guidance for the reconstruction of argumentative exchanges that occur in it. (1) Mr. Cameron (leader of the opposition): So the flagship of forced mergers has sunk without trace. Let us turn to another flagship that is sinking fast – ID cards. Will the Prime Minister admit to the House that the whole project is now being reviewed, including the timetable and the type of card? Mr. Blair (the Prime Minister): No, I certainly will not say that, because it is not correct. It is very important – [Interruption.] If the right hon. Gentleman is basing his comments on leaked e-mails in the newspapers, I suggest that he does not raise that topic. If he looks at what is happening, he will see that it is important that we proceed with identity cards for the simple reason that if we do not have a proper identity card system, we will not be able to track illegal immigrants in this country or prevent identity fraud and abuse. It is for that reason that we most certainly will proceed to introduce identity cards. (Parliamentary Archives, 2006)
In this exchange, the leader of the opposition asks the Prime Minister a question about the government’s identity cards plan, implying and trying to make the Prime Minister admit that the ID cards plan is a failure. In light of the proposed characterisation of the activity type of Question Time, the argumentative exchange can be reconstructed as a mixed dispute over the proposition the performance of the government is up to standard. In relation to this proposition, two
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main standpoints, a positive and a negative one, can be identified. Mr. Blair, the Prime Minister, is the protagonist of the positive standpoint that the performance of the government is up to standard, and Mr. Cameron, the leader of Opposition, is the protagonist of the negative standpoint that the performance of the government is not up to standard. Both standpoints are left implicit. In this specific exchange, Mr. Cameron’s main argument is implied in the question he asks: the identity cards plan of the government is a failure. Similarly, Mr. Blair’s main argument is implied in his answer, as he argues that the concerned plan is not a failure, and that it rather necessary. The following is the analytic overview of the exchange, in which the sub-discussion is clear. Mr. Cameron’s argumentation can be reconstructed as follows: ѮFQFSGPSNBODFPGUIFHPWFSONFOUJTOPUVQUPTUBOEBSE
ѮFJEFOUJUZDBSETQMBOJTBGBJMVSF ѮFXIPMFQMBOJTCFJOHSFWJTFE
BѮFUJNFUBCMFPGUIFQMBOJTCFJOHSFWJTFE
CѮFUZQFPGDBSETJTCFJOHSFWJTFE
In response, the Prime Minister’s argumentation can be reconstructed as follows: ѮFQFSGPSNBODFPGUIFHPWFSONFOUJTVQUPTUBOEBSE
. BѮFJEFOUJUZDBSETQMBO JTOPUBGBJMVSF BѮFJEFOUJUZDBSET QMBOJTOPUCFJOHSFWJTFE BѮFMFBEFSPG 0QQPTJUJPOTBSHVNFOUJT CBTFEPOMFBLFEFNBJMT JOUIFOFXTQBQFS
CѮFJEFOUJUZDBSETQMBOJTOFDFTTBSZ .
CѮFJEFOUJUZDBSET QMBOUSBDLTJMMFHBM JNNJHSBOUT
CѮFJEFOUJUZDBSET QMBOQSFWFOUTJEFOUJUZ GSBVEBOEBCVTF
Manoeuvring strategically in Prime Minister’s Question Time 177
As it can be seen from the analytic overview, a sub-discussion has been initiated by the question asked by the Mr. Cameron. The sub-discussion is about his main argument that the ID cards plan is a failure. The sub-dispute is mixed, since the Prime Minister, as expected from him, rejects the sub-standpoint and adopts its opposite. A proper characterisation of the activity type should not only facilitate the reconstruction of argumentative exchanges, but also reconcile institutional rules and conventions with the pragma-dialectical rules for reasonable discussants.4 For example, the rules of Question Time which stipulate that the Members of Parliament are allowed to ask questions that pertain only to the responsibilities of the Prime Minister as head of government seem to obstruct the process of critical testing as they restrict the discussants’ freedom of advancing their points of view. Such obstruction is viewed in the pragma-dialectical approach as a violation of the first rule of a critical discussion (the freedom rule), which stipulates that “discussants may not prevent each other from advancing standpoints or from calling standpoints into question” (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 2004, p. 190). However, a closer examination of the argumentative practice, in light of the characterisation of the activity type, reveals that the restriction of this rule applies, in fact, not to the propositional content of the discussants’ standpoints but to the propositional content of their arguments instead. As we have come to see through the characterisation of the activity type, the questions that the Members of Parliament pose imply, in effect, their arguments in support of the main standpoint, which expresses either a negative or a positive evaluation of the performance of the government. In light of this view, the restriction imposed by the institutional rules is no longer an obstruction to critical testing. It is, rather, a specification of the fourth rule of a critical discussion (the relevance rule). According to the relevance rule, the discussants need to defend their standpoints by using argumentation that is relevant to the standpoint at stake. Rule four of the code of conduct for reasonable discussants stipulates that “standpoints may not be defended by non-argumentation or argumentation that is not relevant to the standpoint” (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 2004, p. 192). The institutional rule that restricts the topic of the questions asked by Members of Parliament to those issues for which the Prime Minister is responsible eventually specifies what counts as relevant argumentation in support of the standpoint in the specific context of the institution of Question Time. Rightly, what is relevant for the evaluation of the performance of the government are the issues that fall under the responsibility of the Prime Minister.
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4.
Institutional insights for the analysis of strategic manoeuvring
While the characterisation of institutionalised argumentative practices as argumentative activity types primarily guides the analyst in analysing institutionalised argumentative exchanges in terms of a critical discussion, such characterisation also provides assistance in analysing the moves that occur as part of these exchanges. As van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2007a, p. 376) put it, “depending on the activity type and the prevailing conventional preconditions, different constraints apply with regard to the strategic manoeuvring that is allowed”. In light of the concept of strategic manoeuvring, every move in argumentative practice is an instance of strategic manoeuvring in which a certain choice of topics, audience frames and stylistic presentational devices is made (van Eemeren & Houtlosser, 2002). The knowledge of the rules and conventions of a certain institution provides significant insights for understanding the arguer’s choice. The understanding is further enhanced by the knowledge of the role that a certain move fulfils in the context of critical testing, which can be derived from dialectical profiles.
4.1 Dialectical profiles and the distinction between concrete and analytically relevant moves In the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation, real argumentative exchanges are examined in terms of the ideal model of a critical discussion. The ideal model, which prescribes the procedure for a critical resolution of differences of opinion, specifies the moves that the arguers would have to perform if they were aiming solely at critically resolving their difference of opinion. Real argumentative discussions, however, do not usually proceed in the way prescribed in the ideal procedure, if only because discussants almost never aim only at the critical resolution of their differences of opinion. In real argumentative exchanges, discussants engage in (actual) procedures that are derived from the different contexts in which their argumentative exchanges take place. Actual argumentative exchanges that occur in institutionalised contexts, for example, follow an institutional procedure that is governed by institutional rules and conventions and is aimed at the achievement of an institutional aim. When examining such exchanges within a pragma-dialectical framework, such procedures are reconstructed in light of the ideal procedure of critical testing as a necessary step for the assessment of the reasonableness of argumentation (van Eemeren, Grootendorst, Jacobs, & Jackson, 1993). In the case of Prime Minister’s Question Time, for instance, the argumentative exchange of the Members of Parliament and the Prime Minister follows
Manoeuvring strategically in Prime Minister’s Question Time 179
the institutional procedure of question-answer, which is governed by the rules and conventions of Question Time, and aimed at holding the government to account. As I have argued earlier, these exchanges are reconstructed in light of the procedure of critical resolution as a critical discussion about the performance of the government. Moving from the level of argumentative exchanges to the level of argumentative moves, a distinction can be made between analytically relevant moves (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1992) and the moves that arguers actually perform in real argumentative exchanges. Analytically relevant moves are those moves that are potentially relevant to the resolution of the difference of opinion, i.e. they, in principle, can be assumed to play a role in the ideal procedure of critical resolution. In contrast, argumentative moves that arguers in real argumentative exchanges perform, hereafter referred to as concrete argumentative moves, are part of an actual procedure. For example, the move of advancing a standpoint is an analytically relevant move in the domain of the confrontation stage of a critical discussion. However, in the course of the actual discussion in Prime Minister’s Question Time, for example, the move of asking the Prime Minister a question is the corresponding concrete argumentative move. The concrete move, of a question in this case, is actually performed by the discussant; it comes as part of the institutional procedure of question-answer exchanges. The analytically relevant moves in a particular discussion stage are those represented in the dialectical profile of the stage (van Eemeren, Houtlosser, & Snoeck Henkemans, 2007a, 2007b). Dialectical profiles represent, in dialogical trees, all the options for making analytically relevant moves that the parties of a dispute have in the course of a particular stage of the critical testing procedure. Below, for example, is the dialectical profile for the confrontation stage of a potential mixed dispute. The profile specifies the dialectical moves that are analytically relevant to the achievement of the dialectical goal of the confrontation stage. In order to successfully define the type of dispute that is to be resolved through the course of the discussion, the parties in a critical discussion need to perform only those types of moves that are represented in the profile.
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1 D1 +/p 2 D2 rud/p ?/(+/p) 3 D1 +/p’ maintain +/p retract +/p (exit discussion) 4 D2 maintain ?/(+/p) –/p retract ?/(+/p) (close stage: (exit discussion) non-mixed dispute) 5 D1 ?/(–/p) 6 D2 maintain –/p retract –/p (close stage: non-mixed dispute) 7 D1
maintain ?/(–/p) retract ?/(–/p) (close stage: (exit discussion) mixed dispute)
Basic dialectical profile of the confrontation stage of a potentially mixed dispute D1, D2: +/p: ?/(+/p): –/p: ?/(–/p): rud/p: +/p’:
the discussants in a critical discussion advance a positive standpoint concerning the proposition p cast doubt over the positive standpoint advance a negative standpoint concerning the proposition p cast doubt over the negative standpoint request a usage declarative concerning the proposition p advance a reformulation of the positive standpoint by using a usage declarative
The main advantage of using dialectical profiles in the analysis of argumentative practice is that the profiles bridge the gap between the model of a critical discussion as an ideal for argumentative discourse and the less than ideal argumentative practices. When argumentative exchanges are reconstructed as a critical discussion, concrete argumentative moves from argumentative practice are to be reconstructed into the analytically relevant moves that makes their argumentative function explicit. The profile generates a finite list of all the moves that are ana-
Manoeuvring strategically in Prime Minister’s Question Time 181
lytically relevant to the resolution of a difference of opinion, into which concrete speech acts need to be reconstructed. In that sense, every concrete speech act that is performed in the course of an argumentative exchange has an analytically relevant move that represents it in the dialectical profile of the pertinent stage of a critical discussion. While the moves in the dialectical profile, being derived from the ideal model of a critical discussion, are potentially sound, they can yet be used to represent fallacious concrete argumentative moves.
4.2 Institutional rules and conventions and strategic manoeuvring A concrete argumentative move in an actual argumentative exchange is the realisation of an analytically relevant move in a dialectical profile. In fact, every analytically relevant move in a dialectical profile represents a lot that can be realised in actual argumentative exchanges in more than one way. For example, a question that a Member of Parliament poses can be the realisation of the analytically relevant move of advancing a positive standpoint, and so can the statement through which a Member of Parliament introduces his question.5 Given that in light of the concept of strategic manoeuvring, every concrete argumentative move is considered an instance of strategic manoeuvring, instances of strategic manoeuvring can be viewed as realisations of analytically relevant moves. In every move they make, arguers strategically manoeuvre attempting to maintain a balance between their dialectical aim of being reasonable and their rhetorical aim of being persuasive; the arguers’ choice of the topics of their arguments, the way to frame the perspective of the audience and to exploit the appropriate stylistic means to present them is governed by this attempt. As arguers advance concrete argumentative moves in the context of an institutionalised argumentative practice, the three aspects of strategic manoeuvring get restricted by the rules and conventions of the institution concerned. Institutional rules and conventions regulate concrete institutional procedures. They specify what the allowable concrete moves in such procedures are, and influence the arguer’s strategic manoeuvring in performing the concrete argumentative moves advanced as part of such procedures, accordingly. In that sense, the rules and conventions of an institution specify what the institutionally relevant moves are. They do so by restricting the topic, the adaptation to the audience perspective and the presentation of the moves that discussants are allowed to perform in the course of the institutional procedure. For example, the rules and conventions of Question Time restrict the presentation of the allowable moves to questions – by the Members of Parliament – and answers – by the Prime Minister –. The rules and conventions further restrict the topic of the questions that the Members of
182 Dima Mohammed
Parliament are allowed to ask, as they stipulate that the Members of Parliament need to address in the questions they pose to the Prime Minister issues that are relevant to the responsibilities of his government. The restrictions imposed by institutional rules and conventions on the performance of concrete speech acts, can be viewed as restrictions applied to the possible realisations of the slots of analytically relevant moves from the dialectical profile. In a way, institutional rules and conventions specify what instances of strategic manoeuvring can be considered as institutionally relevant realisations of analytically relevant moves. Institutional rules and conventions restrict the range of choice for what counts as institutionally relevant moves, in the three aspects of strategic manoeuvring. For example, in relation to the analytically relevant move of advancing an argument in support of the main standpoint, institutional rules and conventions stipulate that its institutionally relevant realisations need to relate to a topic that falls under the responsibility of the government, address the Speaker of the House and be presented in the form of a question.6
5.
Analysing strategic manoeuvring in the context of Prime Minister’s Question Time: The case of inconsistency regarding Darfur
In order to illustrate the role that institutional insights can play in the analysis of argumentative moves, I shall examine the exchange below, from Prime Minister’s Question Time of 13 June 2007, in which, the Member of Parliament, Mr. Shailesh Vara, from the Conservative Party asks the Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair, about the actions of the government regarding the crisis in Darfur. (2) Mr. Shailesh Vara: Does the Prime Minister believe that it is right that, on the one hand, he and his Government should be critical of the Sudanese regime’s butchery in Darfur, yet on the other hand, at British military establishments, Sudanese military personnel received training as recently as April this year? Mr. Tony Blair, the Prime Minister: I would have to look into that fairly carefully before I agreed with the premise behind the hon. Gentleman’s question, if I may say so. As far as I am aware, any training that we give to the military of whatever country is training that also upholds respect for law and order, human rights and so on. I simply do not know about the particular instance that the hon. Gentleman mentions, but let me tell him that we are continuing to put all the pressure we can on the Sudanese Government to come into compliance with the international community’s recommendations, and over the next couple of weeks, if there is
Manoeuvring strategically in Prime Minister’s Question Time 183
not action by the Sudanese Government, we will be tabling a United Nations Security Council resolution. (Parliamentary Archives, 2007)
In this question, the Member of Parliament from the Conservative Party asks the Prime Minister to justify the government’s position in light of a charge of inconsistency: while the government is expressing criticism towards the Sudanese regime’s actions in Darfur, it provides training for the Sudanese military who are involved in them. In response, the Prime Minister attempts to deny the charge of inconsistency. While he admits the alleged critical attitude towards the Sudanese government, he denies having knowledge of the particular example of the alleged support which the Member of Parliament refers to. Nevertheless, the Prime Minister defends the government’s action as he argues that if such training has happened, it would surely ‘uphold respect for law and order and human rights’, as this is the case for all trainings provided by the British military establishment to foreign military. The Prime Minister goes further expressing and defending the government’s commitment to the alleged critical attitude towards the Sudanese government. In light of the characterisation of the activity type of Question Time, presented in the second section, above, the question-answer exchange can be viewed as part of a mixed dispute over the performance of the government. The Member of Parliament is of the point of view that the performance of the government is not up to standard, and the Prime Minister is in favour of the opposite point of view, mainly that the performance of the government is up to standard. In defending his point of view, the Member of Parliament argues that the actions of the government in relation to Darfur are not acceptable and provides the example of the training that has been provided to the Sudanese military by the British establishment no longer than two months ago. The Member of Parliament further employs an accusation of inconsistency in an attempt to make the expected justification of the training by the Prime Minister almost impossible, as it would be hard for the Prime Minister to justify actions which are in contradiction with the government’s own – rightly expressed – stance of criticism towards the butchery in Darfur. The Prime Minister’s response tackles the same argument that the Member of Parliament presents (that the government’s actions in relation to Darfur are unacceptable): he first denies knowledge of the alleged training as an instance of these actions, and then attempts to justify it – if it has happened – as being acceptable, because it is legal and upholds respect for human rights. Following is the analytic overview of the argumentation advanced by the Member of Parliament and the Prime Minister, respectively:
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(a)
ѮFQFSGPSNBODFPGUIFHPWFSONFOUJTOPUVQUPTUBOEBSE
ѮFBDUJPOTPGUIFHPWFSONFOU JOSFMBUJPOUP%BSGVSBSFVOBDDFQUBCMF
ѮFZBSFJODPOUSBEJDUJPOXJUIUIF A DPSSFDU TUBODF PG UIF HPWFSONFOU DPODFSOJOH%BSGVS
(b)
8IJMF UIF HPWFSONFOU DSJUJDJTFT UIF 4VEBOFTF SFHJNF T CVUDIFSZ JO %BSGVS ZFU JU QSPWJEFT USBJOJOHGPS UIF4VEBOFTFNJMJUBSZQFSTPOOFM
ѮFQFSGPSNBODFPGUIFHPWFSONFOUJTVQUPTUBOEBSE
ѮFBDUJPOTPGUIFHPWFSONFOUJOSFMBUJPOUP%BSGVSBSFOPUVOBDDFQUBCMF
B*UJTOPUTVSFUIF # SJUJTI FTUBCMJTINFOU IBT QSPWJEFE USBJOJOH GPS 4VEBOFTFNJMJUBSZQFSTPOOFM
C"QPTTJCMFUSBJOJOHGPSUIF4VEBOFTFNJMJUBSZJT OPUOFDFTTBSJMZJODPOUSBEJDUJPOXJUIUIFA DPSSFDU TUBODF PGUIFHPWFSONFOUDPODFSOJOH%BSGVS CѮFUSBJOJOHQSPWJEFECZUIF # SJUJTI FTUBCMJTINFOU UP GPSFJHO NJMJUBSZ JT BMXBZT MFHBM BOE VQIPMETSFTQFDUGPSIVNBOSJHIUT
The exchange at hand constitutes eventually a sub-discussion concerning the argument that the actions of the government in relation to Darfur are unacceptable. In this analysis, I would like to focus on the accusation of inconsistency employed by the Member of Parliament in support of his point of view, in the course of this sub-discussion. As an argumentative move, the accusation above will be discussed as an instance of strategic manoeuvring, in the course of the argumentative exchange concerning the argument of the Member of Parliament that the actions of the government in relation to Darfur are unacceptable. The dialectical profile of the confrontation stage provides useful insights for understanding what the Member of Parliament is trying to do argumentatively with the advanced accusation of inconsistency. In the context of Question Time, the dialectical profile of the confrontation stage can be used to examine the argumentative confrontations of the sub-discussions that are initiated when Members of Parliament anticipate doubt towards the arguments that they advance in support of the main standpoint. The anticipation of doubt, as argued earlier, turns
Manoeuvring strategically in Prime Minister’s Question Time 185
the arguments into sub-standpoints. In the discussion of these sub-standpoints, Members of Parliament perform concrete speech acts that can be represented by one of the following analytically relevant moves: advancing a sub-standpoint (turn 1, in the profile), providing a usage declarative (turn 3, in the profile), maintaining or retracting the advanced sub-standpoint (turn 3, in the profile), casting doubt over the opposite sub-standpoint (in turn 5, in the profile, once this opposite sub-standpoint has been advanced) and either maintain or retract the latter doubt (turn 7, in the profile). Similarly, in the same discussion, the Prime Minister performs concrete speech acts that need to be reconstructed as one of the following analytically relevant moves: request for usage declarative (turn 2, in the profile), casting doubt (turn 2, in the profile), maintaining or retracting doubt as well as advancing the opposite sub-standpoint (turn 4, in the profile), and finally maintaining or retracting the advanced opposite sub-standpoint (turn 6, in the profile). In the exchange at hand, the accusation of inconsistency can be reconstructed as the analytically relevant move of maintaining a positive sub-standpoint performed by discussant 1 at the third turn in the dialectical profile of the confrontation stage. This accusation is an instantiation of the analytically relevant move of maintaining a positive sub-standpoint, through which discussant 1 attempts to make discussant 2 retract his doubt concerning the sub-standpoint advanced by discussant 1. The accusation is therefore an instance of strategic manoeuvring that aims at making the opponent retract his doubt in the course of the argumentative confrontation. In the exchange at hand, the Member of Parliament accuses the Prime Minister and the government of an inconsistency between their words and deeds: while the government’s stance is critical to the Sudanese military, its deeds are supportive. Employing this accusation of inconsistency, the Member of Parliament attempts to get the Prime Minister to admit that either of the two (i.e. words or deeds) is unacceptable; in this case, Mr. Vara wants the Prime Minister to admit that the government’s actions are unacceptable, as this is in fact his own sub-standpoint. If he admits that, Mr. Blair has to retract his doubt concerning the sub-standpoint of Mr. Vara; the retraction is favourable for the latter, since it allows him to maintain his sub-standpoint without the need to defend it. The analysis of the accusation as an instance of strategic manoeuvring is enhanced by the knowledge of the rules and conventions of Question Time. The knowledge of institutional rules and conventions and the consequent constraints on the three aspects of strategic manoeuvring is insightful for a good understanding of how arguers actually exploit the opportunities allowed to them in a specific institutional context, in order to steer the discussion to a favourable outcome. For example, the Member of Parliament in the exchange at hand exploits the choices of presentation defined by the rules and conventions of Question Time, to his own
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advantage. Restricted by institutional rules, Mr. Vara has to present his argument indirectly in the form of a question. From the range of types of questions allowed to Mr. Vara, he chooses to imply his argument in a yes/no question concerning whether or not the Prime Minister believes that an inconsistency is acceptable. The choice furthers the case of the Member of Parliament since whatever straightforward answer the Prime Minister gives he will be bound to admit the alleged inconsistency. In fact, the Prime Minister attempts to evade such trap, as he responds by saying I would have to look into that fairly carefully before I agreed with the premise behind the hon. Gentleman’s question, if I may say so. The accusation employed by Mr. Vara exhibits also an expedient choice from the topical potential available to him, given the restrictions imposed by institutional rules and conventions on the arguer’s concrete moves. The rules of Question Time restrict the institutionally relevant topical potential to the issues for which the Prime Minister is responsible. The Member of Parliament chooses from such topics one that steers the discussion to his advantage. In relation to the crisis in Darfur, the government’s position is inconsistent; having his argument based on an issue regarding which the actions of the government are inconsistent with its declared position, Mr. Vara has more chances in getting the Prime Minister acknowledge that the actions of his government are not acceptable. After all, if the Prime Minister wants to maintain the government’s words of criticism concerning the Sudanese actions in Darfur, which he does, he has to admit that the actions of the government which are inconsistent with these words are unacceptable. In fact, Mr. Vara supports his attempts to steer the discussion towards this outcome even more by the choice of words he makes as he describes the Sudanese actions in Darfur as the ‘Sudanese regime’s butchery’. This choice of words makes it is very difficult for the Prime Minister to respond to the charge of inconsistency by withdrawing the government’s words, and directs him towards acknowledging that the actions of providing training for the Sudanese military are unacceptable instead.
6.
Conclusion
In this paper, I have attempted to explore the potential contribution of different pragma-dialectical tools and concepts to the integration of institutional insights into the analysis of institutionalised argumentative exchanges. I discussed the concepts of strategic manoeuvring and argumentative activity types and the tool of dialectical profile in light of such contribution. With examples from the argumentative practice of Prime Minister’s Question Time, I have shown how these concepts can give account to significant institutional characteristics of argumentative practice.
Manoeuvring strategically in Prime Minister’s Question Time 187
The concept of argumentative activity types provides the perspective from which institutionalised argumentative exchanges are analysed. As argumentative activity types define and characterise institutionalised argumentative practice, they highlight the role that critical testing plays in achieving institutional aims, and thus, provide a perspective in which a pragma-dialectical examination of such practice makes sense. They further guide the analyst in interpreting the argumentative exchanges that occur as part of this practice and reconstruct them in terms of a critical discussion. That is crucial, because based on it the main standpoints, types of disputes and the roles assumed by the discussants which are specific to a particular institution are identified. The concept of strategic manoeuvring provides the perspective from which argumentative moves can be analysed. In light of the concept, every argumentative move is an instance of strategic manoeuvring in which an analytically relevant move is realised by making some choice of topics, audience frames and stylistic presentational devices. While dialectical profiles specify what the analytically relevant moves in a certain discussion stage are, institutional rules and conventions determine the allowable topics, audience frames and stylistic presentation for realising such moves as part of a particular activity type. Because dialectical profiles also highlight the role that a particular argumentative move plays in the course of critical testing, the combined knowledge of dialectical profiles and institutional rules and conventions sheds significant light on the strategic function that a particular manifestation of strategic manoeuvring has.7
References Beard, A. (2000). The language of politics. London: Routledge. 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: Foris. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Grootendorst, R. (1992). Relevance reviewed: The case of argumentum ad hominem. Argumentation, 6, 141–159. 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, AL: University of Alabama Press. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (1999). Strategic manoeuvring in argumentative discourse. Discourse Studies, 1(4), 479–497. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2002). Strategic maneuvering: 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.
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Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2003). The development of the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation. Argumentation, 17(4), 387–403. 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 Argument: Proceedings of a Conference at McMaster University (pp. 75–84). Hamilton, Ontario: Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2007a). Seizing the occasion: Parameters for analysing ways of strategic maneuvering. In F. H. van Eemeren, J. A. Blair, C. A. Willard & B. Garssen (Eds.), Proceedings of the Sixth Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation (pp 975–982). Amsterdam: Sic Sat. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2007b). Kinship: The relationship between Johnstone’s ideas about philosophical argument and the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation. Philosophy & Rhetoric, 40(1), 51–70. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2007c). The study of argumentation as normative pragmatics. Pragmatics and Cognition, 15(1), 161–177. Eemeren, F. H. van, Houtlosser, P., & Snoeck Henkemans, A. F. (2007a). Argumentative indicators in discourse. A pragma-dialectical study. Dordrecht: Springer. Eemeren, F. H. van, Houtlosser, P., & Snoeck Henkemans, A. F. (2007b). Dialectical profiles and indicators of argumentative moves. In H. V. Hansen, C. W. Tindale, R. H. Johnson & J. A. Blair (Eds), Dissensus and The Search for Common Ground. Proceedings of the OSSA Conference 2007 [CD-ROM]. Windsor, ON: OSSA. House of Commons Information Office (2005). Parliamentary questions. Factsheet 1 [Retrieved January 30, 2007, from http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/p01.pdf]. Levinson, S. C. (1979). Activity types and language. Linguistics, 17(5), 365–399. Levinson, S. C. (1992). Activity types and language. In P. Drew & J. Heritage (Eds.), Talk at work: Interaction in institutional settings (pp. 66–100). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mohammed, D. (2007). Argumentative activity types and the account of arguers’ empirical aims. In H. V. Hansen, C. W. Tindale, R. H. Johnson & J. A. Blair (Eds), Dissensus and The Search for Common Ground. Proceedings of the OSSA Conference 2007 [CD-ROM]. Windsor, ON: OSSA. Parliamentary Archives. (2006). HC/OF/448/182/1382–4 [Retrieved September 10, 2006, from http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/cm060712/ debtext/60712-0885.htm]. Parliamentary Archives. (2007). HC/OF/461/104/756 [Retrieved September 15, 2007, from http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmhansrd/cm070613/ debtext/70613-0003.htm]. Rogers, R., & Walter, R. (2006). How parliament works. Harlow, England: Pearson Education Limited. Wilson, J. (1990). Politically speaking: The pragmatic analysis of political language. Oxford: Blackwell.
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Notes 1. The pragma-dialectical concept of argumentative activity types is inspired by Levinson’s concept of activity type (1979; 1992). Similar to Levinson’s, the pragma-dialectical activity types are aim-driven, and with structural elements that are rationally and functionally adapted to the aim of the activity. In contrast to Levinson’s, the pragma-dialectical activity types refer only to those activities in which argumentation plays a central role. As van Eemeren and Houtlosser describe them, the pragma-dialectical argumentative activity types refer to ‘cultural artefacts [within argumentative discourse] that can be identified on the basis of careful empirical observation of argumentative practice’ (2005). 2. Usually the Members of Parliament from the ruling party are also in favour of a positive evaluation of the government. However, in contrast to the Prime Minister and the government’s ministers – who have the parliamentary obligation to justify the performance of the government – the Members of Parliament from the ruling party are ‘free’ to adopt the position they choose. Their conventional support for the government is in fact based on a party-related obligation, and so is the opposition’s conventional challenge. 3. For an elaborate discussion of the Prime Minister’s Question Time as an argumentative activity type, see Mohammed (2007). 4. Ideally, as a result of the instrumentality of argumentation to the achievement of institutional aims, institutional rules and conventions need to be in adherence with the norm of critical testing. Institutional rules and conventions are supposed to promote the achievement of institutional aims; since in institutions where argumentation plays a central role, these aims are achieved through argumentation, institutional rules and conventions need to ensure that reasonable argumentation is not obstructed. However, in practice, some institutional rules or conventions might constitute an obstruction to the procedure of critical testing. The examination of such obstructions can be helpful in the evaluation of the efficiency of institutional procedures in promoting institutional aims. The examination can also be useful for the evaluation of such procedures in order to improve their efficiency. 5. Not only can a single analytically relevant move from the profile represent a multitude of types of concrete argumentative moves, but one single analytically relevant move can also eventually represent more than one concrete argumentative move in the discourse. For example, the analytically relevant move of casting doubt can represent a series of concrete moves in which an arguer accuses another of being inconsistent implying challenge to his point of view. 6. Even though the allowable contributions for the Members of Parliament are restricted to questions, Members of Parliament do perform other types of speech acts indirectly. For example, Members of Parliament can perform the speech act of accusations of inconsistency, indirectly in the questions they pose. Both the direct and indirect speech acts are nevertheless part of an actual argumentative exchange. 7. This paper has appeared in Argumentation 22 (2008), a special issue on Strategic Manoeuvring in Institutional Contexts Dedicated to Peter Houtlosser (1956–2008).
Quid pro nobis Rhetorical stylistics for argument analysis Jeanne Fahnestock
1.
Introduction
During thirteen days of meetings at Camp David in Maryland in 1978, the two chief parties involved, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, were rarely in face-to-face negotiations. Their coming to agreement in what would be known as the Camp David Accords was achieved largely through a process of revising the language of two “Frameworks” that they would both eventually sign. Practicing the “single document method,” then US President Jimmy Carter and his negotiators shuttled the same text between the Egyptian and Israeli teams with alteration after alteration in the language. After twenty-three drafts, the parties finally had wording they could both endorse.1 As flawed and incomplete as these agreements seem in retrospect, nothing at all would have been achieved without a meticulous manipulation of language choices as the levers of compromise. It is cases like this one that help students of argument appreciate the importance of presentation, of how things are worded in resolving differences. The substantive points and material commitments of the parties involved still had to be phrased in ways that were acceptable to both sides, a lesson that neither an exclusive attention to positions nor to language will suffice in understanding how arguments are staged in the real world. The need for this double vision, for appreciating the simultaneous what and the how of argument, is certainly behind van Eemeren and Houtlosser’s goal for a “Strategic Maneuvering” project that will “bridge the gap by showing that rhetorical and dialectical approaches are, in fact, complementary” (2006, 382).2 This project for a new twenty-first century synthesis of rhetoric and dialectic would actually restore the early modern European formulation of these arts, itself the restoration of the classical synthesis. For the humanist pedagogical reformers of the sixteenth century, who saw themselves as rescuing dialectic
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from scholasticism and recovering a purified classical rhetoric, the gap had been bridged. The dialectic and rhetoric of the sixteenth century, along with grammar, the predecessor art in the trivium, offered an integrated curriculum of language mastery and argument construction, and university students at the time studied all three disciplines. Their textbooks offer insights into these interconnections, especially those written by Philip Melanchthon in the 1540s. His vision of the deep interdependence between dialectic and rhetoric may have come from his Biblical hermeneutics. He saw the Gospels and Epistles as a kind of sacred rhetoric adapted to human understanding (Schneider, 1996). The Scriptures delivered divine dogma, the quid, the what of doctrine, but they did so in a way that made it eternally relevant as the quid pro nobis, the what for us. Melanchthon came to see shaping the quid into the quid pro nobis as the combined work of rhetoric and dialectic and the responsibility of all teaching. In fact he added a fourth didactic genre to the other three (forensic, epideictic and deliberative) in his 1542 Elementorum Rhetorices and tied it to dialectic as an art of discovering as well as teaching the quid of a subject (423–424). Furthermore, Melanchthon understood that language manipulation was at the center of all three arts. So he included sections in his rhetoric on the tie-in with dialectic and specifically linked figures of speech to different topoi. Similarly in his dialectic, he specified the sentence patterns (in Latin of course) for many of the standard argument forms. But like all the manuals and discussions of style that preceded and followed him, he could only gesture at this vast subject and pour into the doctrine of the figures many of the micro-level argument moves presented in dialectic as well. With Melanchthon as one resource, the project of bringing rhetoric and dialectic together, after their long divorce and current desuetude, does not have to build quite from scratch. To contribute to this goal, I would like to explore what a “rhetorical stylistics” might include to be fully sensitive to the pursuit of “presentational devices” conveying the various “moves” in an argument (van Eemeren and Houtlosser, 2002, 140). My contribution, in part, is going to be to suggest the magnitude of the challenge. The attention to style, and even just to the figures of speech, in texts from the rhetorical tradition spanning over two thousand years, is considerable and difficult to access. And even beyond these guides with their hundreds of devices, virtually any linguistic feature of a text (that is, any feature which is transparent according to some system of analysis) can be relevant in presenting an argument, as Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca point out in The New Rhetoric (p. 152). So assessing “presentational devices” requires insights not only from the rhetorical tradition but also from contemporary schools of language analysis. I will begin by first describing relevant approaches and, second, I will reanalyze some cases to illustrate the available tools. Third, I will sketch in an out-
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line of a recovery project in rhetorical stylistics, selecting a presentational method from each main heading. Finally, by way of application, since the pragma-dialectical school emphasizes dialogic arguments, I will look briefly at some features in a case where competing speakers are available, underscoring a research agenda into how opposed arguers may converge or diverge in their style.
2.
The sources for stylistic analysis
The subject of the “stylistic characteristics of strategic maneuvering” or “presentational devices” is extremely complex. To begin with, to what disciplinary home should analysts turn in order to gain insight into the language features that can have a persuasive effect? They can of course draw on traditional rhetorical stylistics, codified in the practice of the Sophists and Isocrates, the third book of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, the fourth book of the Ad Herennium, in brief but important passages in Cicero’s works, in the eighth and ninth books of Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria, in the Hellenistic works of Hermogenes, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Longinus and Demetrius, in the many works on figures collected by Halm from late antiquity, through to the massive figure manuals of the early modern period, starting with George of Trebizond and continuing into the eighteenth century. These later treatments exist in both omnibus rhetorics, like Melanchthon’s, as well as in treatises devoted only to figuration like Susenbrotus’s Epitome Troporum ac Schematum (1543). Relevant material can also be found in classical and early modern grammars of Latin and Greek. Yet this rich tradition is not readily accessible and hence hardly tapped. There has been considerable attention to figures of speech, but rhetorical stylistics is not really limited to figuration. Most of the relevant texts cited above discuss many other issues such as levels of style, criteria for correctness, clarity, appropriateness and force, and the overall “characters” of style such as sweetness, forcefulness or even sublimity. The figures themselves belong under forcefulness, but they are by no means the be all and end all of the rhetorical teaching on style. Rhetoric lost disciplinary standing, especially in Europe, in the nineteenth century. Toward the end of that century, beginning anew to study language from a different perspective, the discipline of linguistics came into existence, producing its own competing schools. In the last sixty years, offshoots of linguistics – sociolinguistics, pragmatics and discourse analysis – have sought to explain features of “naturally occurring” language. The subdisciplines of discourse analysis and pragmatics also draw heavily on natural language philosophy, as does the pragma-dialectical school in its recourse to Austin, Searle and Grice. The recent study Argumentative Indicators in Discourse (2007) shows the results of this school of
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language analysis in its identification of words and expressions (typically called “illocutionary force indicating devices” or IFIDs) signaling speech acts in the four stages of a critical discussion. In discourse analysis alone, two particularly productive schools that can be useful in argument analysis are the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) of M. A. K. Halliday and his many adherents (J. L. Martin, Gunther Kress, Theo vanLeeuwen) and the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of Norman Fairclough and his followers. (See Halliday, 2004 and Fairclough, 2003, for recent versions of their approaches. Neither of these largely Anglophone movements is well known in the US.) In their overview of argumentation studies, Fundamentals of Argumentation Theory (1996), van Eemeren, Grootendorst, and Snoeck Henkemans describe several other “linguistic” approaches that have proved fruitful, especially in understanding implicit argument indicators and the polyphony (Bakhtinian double voicedness) of language. Among these, Anscombre and Ducrot’s notion of the radical “argumentativity” of all language is perhaps closest in global perspective to rhetorical stylistics and discourse analysis. Representatives of these disparate schools of language analysis have been frequent contributors to the pragma-dilaectical project (e.g., Amossy, 2005). Added to approaches which concentrate on persuasive and functional language is still another discipline, that of literary stylistics, especially as practiced by a group of British scholars beginning in the 1960s. Its proponents include Walter Nash, Roger Fowler, and Geoffrey Leech and Michael Short, whose Style in Fiction offers an eye-opening application of careful language analysis to literary works. Some stylisticians of this school have extended their interest to everyday prose (e.g., Fowler, 1991). A final source of insight can come from the many “language of ” studies that investigate stylistic choices across many genres in ad hoc but often insightful ways. Most identify metaphors (e.g. Susan Sontag’s study of AIDS discourse, 1989) or significant word choices; they rarely examine sentence-level devices or figures beyond a few tropes. But occasional studies leave the reader with a sense that the presentational methods in a text have been explored in a way that links language features with potential effects (e.g., Tillotson on Macauley, 1968). The older art of rhetorical stylistics and the newer approaches from discourse analysis, especially SFL, operate from different starting assumptions and have different goals. Discourse analysts identify choices and patterns that language users are unaware of, and they take these patterns as evidence of constitutive habits of representation, which, as interpreted by Fairclough and others, become tools of ideological critique (2003, 9, 14–15). In pursuit of this “unmasking,” discourse analysts often generate quantitative data from long passages or compared texts, and they prefer to investigate conventional genres like government reports, newspaper stories, manuals, brochures, etc.
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The older tradition, bundled for convenience under the label “rhetorical stylistics,” had a similar observational starting point, examining the language of successful persuaders; even the fragmentary observations on style in Book III of Aristotle’s Rhetoric include citations from speeches and even from dramas and epics. But most rhetorical manuals have a teaching as well as naming function. The Rhetorica ad Herennium, for example, does define and exemplify devices, but it also suggests conditions and effects that a rhetor might achieve by using them. The point is production. Devices are supposed to be consciously chosen and deliberately deployed; ideally, they should remain invisible, but to the consumers, not the users. Much of the attention in the manuals is on word and sentence-level devices, and over the centuries more and more of these are added, operating at different discourse levels and at different “grain sizes.” In the early modern manuals, hundreds of features have a corresponding figural label. The discourse analysts’ quantitative methods and their attention to constitutive features are missing entirely. These basic matters were covered in the grammars and simply “assumed” in the rhetorics. The rhetorical tradition overwhelms with competing Greek, Latin and vernacular terms for overlapping devices. There are no widely accepted taxonomies, no completely trustworthy compendia, no points of easy access. But one advantage in recovering the older rhetorical stylistics comes from the fact that the language devices it identifies are already linked suggestively to argument strategies, strategies which are also cataloged in the manuals under invention. Another advantage is that the treatment of such devices, particularly in the early modern manuals, is both voluminous and precise. Adopting its lexicon is like acquiring a microscope capable of higher magnification that suddenly brings new structures into view. To illustrate this point I want to reconsider the cases used by David Zarefsky in his contribution to the first “Strategic Maneuvering” conference, since republished in Argumentation (2006). This reexamination in no way disagrees with Zarefsky’s substantive insights into loaded language in argument nor with his observation that it is “all strategic maneuvering, all the way down” (p. 400); it merely shows the terminological problems that can occur in applying rhetorical stylistics. Zarefsky identifies a tactic which he calls “persuasive definition” and which he himself carefully defines as a non neutral characterization that conveys a positive or negative attitude about something in the course of naming it. The name is, in effect, an implicit argument that one should view the thing in a particular way. But the argument is never actually advanced. Rather, the definition is put forward as if it is was [sic] uncontroversial and could be easily stipulated. The argument in behalf of the proposed definition is simply ‘smuggled in’ through the use of the definition itself (404).
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Zarefsky then offers a series of quick examples of such non-neutral naming – quarantine for a blockade in the Cuban missile crisis, death tax for an estate tax, peacekeeper for a missile – and the extended cases of the competing terms torture versus alternative interrogation techniques and of the Bush administration’s use of war or war on terror since 2001. Looked at from the perspective of rhetorical stylistics, none of these examples of usage would be called a “persuasive definition”; they are instead instances of lack of definition. They are cases of tendentious labeling and they fall generally under rhetorical tactics of amplification or attentuation (auxesis or meiosis). Many rhetorical manuals advise rhetors to choose terms with connotations favorable to their case. Quintilian, for example, under the first method of amplification, recommends that in the “actual word employed to describe a thing” the choice should amplify or attenuate, and he offers these examples: “we may say that a man who was beaten was murdered … or, on the other hand, we may say that one who struck another merely touched him, and that one who wounded another merely hurt him” (VIII, iii, 1; Butler, III, 263). In contrast, there actually is a figure of speech, aptly named definitio, which recommends defining a word in a way that supports an argument. It is one of the figures described in the first Latin manual, the Rhetorica ad Herennium: “Definition [definitio] in brief and clear-cut fashion grasps the characteristic qualities of a thing” and further, “…it sets forth the full meaning and character of a thing so lucidly and briefly that to express it in more words seems superfluous, and to express it in fewer seems impossible” ([Cicero], 317). The formal component, so far as it is specified here, requires that the definition be accomplished in a sentence, that it not be hedged and that it have epigrammatic force. The text offers as an example, “By an injury is meant doing violence to some one, to his person by assault, or to his sensibilities by insulting language, or to his reputation by some scandal” (317). Further examples offer brief definitions to distinguish paired words – economy from greed and recklessness from bravery. In fact, later characterizations of this figure specify that it should be used to separate close and often confused terms – in short, the method of definition by contrast. Rhetors trained in dialectic (and that would be every educated person through the seventeenth century) would also know the “genus plus differentia” model for a succinct definition. The figure definitio is linked to argument strategies in many ways. It corresponds to the topos of definition listed in both rhetorical and dialectical textbooks as an inventional resource. Definition strategies make two appearances in Aristotle’s list of 28 lines of argument in Book II, Chapter 23 of the Rhetoric (Freese, 305). Arguers are advised either to stipulate a definition – i.e., to engage in precization which would ideally use definitio (van Eemeren et al., 1996, pp. 86– 88) – or to spread out the definition by citing several meanings of a term. This
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second option can contribute to refutation (for a particularly good example, see Peter Schulz’s treatment of reasonableness in his response to Christopher Tindale, 2006, p. 469). Or it can cast a halo of ambiguity around a term, heightening what the New Rhetoric calls a “fringe of indefiniteness” (p. 131) and muting its power in a controversy. Rhetoric and dialectic as the arts of arguing opposites often offer such contrasting strategies. In later dialectical manuals, the topos of definition focuses on stipulated meanings, and this topic is listed as the first and strongest by both Agricola and Melanchthon (see Agricola, 26–29; 174; Melanchthon, 1547, 663–663). Connecting the figures with the arguments in the second book of his 1542 rhetoric, Melanchthon creates a third grouping of figures of speech which includes the definitio and he specifies, “Definition signifies here altogether the same as in dialectics” (1542, 485; “Definitio prorsus hic significant idem quod dialecticis.”) Attention to definition appears in two other places in rhetorical theory: it represents one of the stases, namely the second, in the sequence conjectural, definitional, qualitative or juridical and translative. Disputes in the definitional stasis concern the best possible label for an act, a goal certainly served by a well phrased definitio. In addition, a definitional dispute over the meaning of a term is one of the five kinds of issues identified as sources of controversies concerning written documents (De Inventione 285; 321–323; see also The New Rhetoric, p. 211, on condensed definitions). In a full recovery of the rhetorical figures, only instances of actually attempting to define a term in a text, whether with an epitomizing definitio or not, would count as “persuasive definitions.” And at least in his 9/20/2001 speech before Congress, President Bush did attempt to define a new kind of war, largely by negation and contrast.3 (For a thorough listing of definition tactics see David Hackett Fischer’s Historians’ Fallacies, 277–280.) Merely using a tendentious term is not a definition or a definitio. Zarefsky’s examples are instead rather potent cases of auxesis that involve the recruitment of novel key terms. But they are not really different from any other use of connotative language with a bias in the arguer’s favor. So a very important issue for careful analysts is deciding which terms might count as too strong or as, perhaps, from a pragma-dialectical perspective, fallacious uses of connotation. This problem is not easily solved, however, since it is impossible to bleach the connotations out of discourse; there are, as The New Rhetoric observes, no “neutral” choices, only choices “more neutral” than others (p. 149).
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3.
Once more to the Shell advertorial
Any of the full classical or early modern rhetorical manuals that treat invention and style repay close scrutiny. But contemporary discourse analysis also yields insights into “presentational devices” with a persuasive payload. The analytical power of both the older system of rhetorical stylistics and of contemporary discourse analysis can be seen in the case of that most extensively analyzed and reanalyzed text, the Shell advertorial on Nigeria that first appeared in 1995. It is used as an illustrative case by Christopher Tindale in 1999 and by van Eemeren and Houtlosser also in 1999 and again in greater detail in 2002. These analyses were the subject of further comments by Michael Leff in 2006 who noted that whichever the direction of the melding, rhetoric into dialectic or dialectic into rhetoric, the results of analysis were much the same (which would not surprise Melanchthon). Looking at this same text yet again, from the perspective of both rhetorical stylistics and Hallidayan discourse analysis, reveals further complexities in its “presentational devices” and highlights the procedural problems in the stylistic analysis of arguments. First, both analyses mention the “rhetorical questions” in this text, singling out those at the end of the third paragraph. In the classical and early modern rhetorical manuals, there is, however, no single category of rhetorical question. Instead, many devices involve the syntactic and prosodic forms of questioning, including erotema, pysma, rogatio [interrogatio], hypophora [anthypophora], aporia, epiplexis and more. To simplify, three main types can be derived from these many forms. First, the erotema, the sense intended in the previously cited analyses, is closest to what most people think of as a “rhetorical question”; this device uses the form of a question to make a statement, expecting the audience to corroborate internally with an emphatic “yes” or “no (see Quintilian, III, 279). The second type, rogatio, is a question that the rhetor asks and then answers. The manuals specified many varieties here, including proposing questions that the jury or opponent would presumably ask and then answering them. (See for example, Quintilian, III, 283; the Shell advertorial contains such an answered question: “And what would happen if Shell pulled out of Nigeria altogether?” followed by a series of statements predicting subsequent events.) The third type is the aporia, a question expressing and hence raising a doubt. Sometimes limited to the rhetor’s doubt about procedure, this type is in intent not a statement in the guise of a question nor is it a question that the rhetor both asks and answers. It can be instead a question left unanswered, unresolved, which perhaps plants a suggestion or suspicion. (Quintilian, III, 385; Melanchthon, 1542, p. 477. For questions as expressions of doubt, see van Eemeren, Houtlosser, and Snoeck Henkemans, 2007, p. 46.) To some extent these differences among “rhetorical” questions corre-
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spond to the differences noted by linguists among yes/no, wh-, and tag questions. The two questions that conclude the third paragraph of the Shell advertorial (Did the protestors understand the risk they were taking? Did the campaign become more important than the cause?) have the form of y/n questions, but given the context, the large heterogenous audience addressed, and the position of these questions at the end of a paragraph before a topic change, they seem closer to being instances of aporia. Rather than inviting uncomplicated agreement, they seem to suggest without claiming. To invoke affirmation and to cast doubt should probably count as different strategic maneuvers. Such categorizing an individual question as one of the three types is, of course, a matter of interpretation. But just to see the interpretive possibilities requires, as Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca point out, a fuller understanding of the options and their differing consequences (p. 125). The penultimate sentence of the entire advertorial offers another instance of a presentational device identified in the older rhetorical stylistics: “Politics is the business of governments and politicians.” In the pragma-dialectical account of the strategic maneuvering in this text, this sentence is placed in the Concluding stage and it appears in both the dialectical and integrated pragma dialectical outlines of the argument (2002, 146–147), but its wording is not discussed among the presentational devices. There is however a notable figure of speech in this sentence: it is polyptoton or traductio ([Cicero], p. 307; Melanchthon, 1542, 475; see also Fahnestock, 1999, pp. 168–170). A polyptoton uses the same root word in two (or more) derivational or inflectional (case) forms and hence in different functional roles. (In English, there are more occasions for derivational morphing than inflectional.) In the advertorial’s sentence, the two forms from the same root are politics and politicians. The related topic is another of those listed in Chapter 23, Book II of Aristotle’s Rhetoric (Kennedy, p. 191); it amounts to connecting two concepts because they are expressed by versions of the same term. Aristotle’s example plays with just and justly (dikaion and dikaios [Aristotle, Freese, p. 296]). In Cicero’s Topica this is the argument from conjugates: Conjugate is the term applied to arguments based on words of the same family. Words of the same family are those which are formed from one root but have different grammatical forms, as wise, wisely, wisdom. Such a conjugation of words is called συζυγια (syzygy), and yields an argument of this sort: If a field is ‘common’ (campascuus), it is legal to use it as a common pasture (compascere). (Cicero, p. 391; see also p. 410)
An epitomizing paraphrase of the argument at issue would be the familiar construction Leave politics to the politicians, though in the case of the Shell advertorial, there is another intervening actor in the sentence, governments. As is typical
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in contemporary writing, figures are often slightly distorted from their perfect forms, perhaps to obscure their patterns and hence their potential transparency (Fahnestock, 2004, pp. 17–18). But notably, in using this statement in the outline of the argument, van Eemeren and Houtlosser do in fact rephrase it in its simplified form, “Politics is the business of politicians” (2002, 146, 147). The strategy presented in this polyptoton (and not easily expressed in other ways) accomplishes first what in the New Rhetoric would be called an association between a domain of activity and the people who are responsible for it. But next, in the context of the whole case, it aims to separate the domain of an oil company’s activities from the domain of politics. (This strategy seems more a “breaking of links” than a dissociation in the New Rhetoric’s terms.) The claimed association between politics and politicians would probably even be acceptable to Shell’s opponents as well as to their supporters, but it could be deployed against rather than in favor of Shell (i.e., since politics is the business of politicians, Shell, which is interfering, should not be). In its perfected form, (without governments added) this statement has a certain epigrammatic force as an epitome, the most succinct and yet complete expression of the argument deployed, as well as the quality of a gnome or maxim expressing conventional wisdom. The Biblical prototype of this figure is Christ’s advice to “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22: 21 NKJV). A very recent example comes from a comment made in February 2008 by President Kagame of Rwanda on who should address problems on his continent: “if it is in Africa, by Africans.”4 The ultimate source of the appeal in this epitomizing figure is probably the pattern of similar phonemes it offers to our pattern-seeking brains.5 The argument from derivational or inflectional cognates with its fairly distinct formal signature is readily accessible in the topical and figural tradition. Less obvious is the use of what could be called an “argumentative series” in this piece. By definition, a series within a sentence is a grouping of three or more items occupying the same grammatical slot. Because of their syntactic parity, the items in a series are inevitably grouped together functionally and also semantically. The rhetorical manuals offer a host of figures that cover types of series according to whether the grouping is of roughly synonymous terms, whether the group is in some kind of order and even whether the items are connected by conjunctions or not: articulus, congeries, enumeratio, incrementum, climax, asyndeton, polysyndeton, etc. A series of nouns serving as a collective grammatical subject appears in the second paragraph of the Shell advertorial: “Slogans, protests and boycotts don’t offer answers” (2002, 143; this item does not appear in the diagrams outlining the argument). Three items are grouped together grammatically here as subjects taking the same predicate (verb/don’t offer + object/answers). These items are also in effect grouped together semantically as the class of things that do not
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offer answers to what is characterized in the immediately preceding sentence as “the situation in Nigeria.” Readers need to refer back to the preceding sentence because answers are typically answers to questions or problems. Since what needs an answer is not otherwise identified in the sentence with the series, this sentence itself is also elliptical; its full meaning requires a reconstruction from the immediate verbal context. Ellipsis, or eclipsis, is also one of the cataloged figures (Quintilian, III, 479; Melanchthon, 1542, 476) and so is the basic syntactic pattern of using only one verb for multiple subjects, which came to called zeugma (Quinitlian III, 481). These unremarkable devices, ellipsis and zeugma, also contribute to the persuasive effects of this sentence by constraining the meaning in the arguer’s favor. Focusing again on the series, the reason it could be noticed as a “presentational device” comes first from the nature of the ad hoc group it creates. It combines items that someone intent on refutation might want to separate or to re-classify. Rather than “activities that don’t offer answers,” these items could be grouped as “activities that Shell would like to stop,” especially the final one, boycotts. Furthermore, the fact that boycotts is the final element in this series brings out another consideration: that while the grouping of items is important, so is their order. For this series can also be interpreted as an incrementum, a listing of items in some increasing or decreasing order (Quintilian III, 267; Melanchthon, 1542, 486; see also Fahnestock, 1999, pp. 91–92). From Shell’s perspective, these items are actually in order of their increasing negative impact, probably not the reading intended. Instead the items may be in their current order to predispose readers to view the series negatively. Of the three items, slogans, protests, boycotts, the first is most likely to be considered negatively, even by those campaigning against Shell. Slogan tends to be a critical label for thoughtlessly repeated verbiage, words without action. Putting it first might trigger, especially for uncommitted readers, a negative evaluation of the entire series. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca draw attention to such series for their evaluative potential, for the bracketing that can result from grammatical coordination, from insertion into an ad hoc class, and from the particular order of items. Listing can transfer the evaluation of one item to the others in a group (The New Rhetoric, 129). The strongest evaluative connotation on one item can in effect contaminate the others. A dramatic example of this device and its evaluative effects comes from a New York Times editorial by Maureen Dowd: “Societies built on special privileges – the all-male Saudi rulers, Catholic priesthood and Taliban, and the boys’ club running Enron – become far too interested in preserving those principles” (New York Times, 20 March 2002). The bracketing here of the Catholic priesthood with the Taliban offended many, indicating the evaluative effects of
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such grouping. Certainly Dowd knew what she was doing. The writers of the Shell advertorial may or may not have consciously tipped their series. So far, the presentational devices described come from the rhetorical tradition. Turning to discourse analysis of the SFL school (identical to literary stylistics of the quantitative variety) brings still other presentational devices into view. For example, Halliday introduced a method that he and others adopting it called transitivity analysis. Halliday made this technique famous by applying it to the novel The Inheritors by William Golding; he found that the world view attributed to the Neanderthals in that novel (largely through narrative commentary) occurred in sentences with mostly intransitive verbs, in contrast to that of the Cro Magnons expressed primarily with transitive verbs taking objects. As revealed in this language pattern, Halliday argued, the Neanderthals were characterized as seeing events but not causal processes; things “just happened” in their world (Halliday, 1971/1996, 71–80). The technique of transitivity analysis was picked up by Roger Fowler and others and applied to ordinary prose to reveal deeper habits of representation (see Fowler 1991, pp. 70–76). A transitivity analysis requires parsing out and listing the predications (subjects, verbs, objects) in a text, and separating those in independent and dependent clauses (that is in adverbial, adjectival and noun clauses). A better label for this method would be “predication” analysis. Derived from case grammar which connects syntactic with functional roles, it reveals patterns of agency and action (who can act on whom), as well as those places where sentences or fragments lack agents or use linking verbs to express states or qualities. Are there any interesting predication patterns in the Shell advertorial which contribute to its persuasiveness? One would expect Shell itself to be a subject and agent in an argument aimed at justifying its policies, and indeed they are. But Shell does not appear as an agent (either subjects of verbs or objects of agentive prepositional phrases in the case of passive verbs) until the twenty-first sentence.6 As an agent in main clauses, they are first paired with verbs indicating positive actions in the present tense and the progressive aspect: Shell and its partners…are spending (21); They are sponsoring (19; here the anaphoric pronoun of choice is they). In only two other main clauses is Shell an agent with verbs modalized to express intentions: we would never do so (44; the pronoun of choice here is we and so is a pro-verb referring to interfere) and Shell. We’ll keep you in touch (47 and 48). However Shell is also an agent in dependent clauses of various kinds (noun clauses, relative/adjectival clauses, and subordinate/adverbial clauses) but all the actions attributed to Shell in these dependent clauses are either negated (where Shell has not operated (24) or, overwhelmingly, they are hypothetical, counterfactual, or only suggested actions (e.g., if Shell pulled out of Nigeria altogether (35, see also 27, 44); It has been suggested that Shell should pull out (26; see also 43). Most of
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the sentences in this advertorial (34 out of 48) actually avoid human agents as the main subjects and are constructed instead with anticipatory subjects (e.g., There are problems, 20) or cleft constructions (e.g., It has been suggested, 26) or abstractions (e.g., situation, 4; experience, 9). The “discourse world” offered to readers is, then, one in which general practices and forces are in control, and Shell only acts in ways favorable to Nigeria and its people. This presentational style certainly serves an argument that draws heavily on the negative consequences predicted if Shell withdraws.
4.
Managing the richness
Van Eemeren and Houtlosser’s analyses of the Shell advertorial modeled in both 1999 and 2002 indicate that the approach to presentational devices under Strategic Maneuvering is sensitive to the variety of language devices that both the rhetorical tradition and discourse analysis bring into view, including the connotations of chosen words, rhetorical questions, and the use of passive voice to mask agency.7 Also noted is an argument based on the figure conciliatio, defined as using the opponents’ premises in one’s own favor (mentioned in 1999, p. 491, and given greater attention in 2002 in a separate section, pp. 151–52).8 If there are so many traditional rhetorical devices, and if there are “invisible” and “unchosen” language practices that can help the persuasiveness of a text, how should students of argument proceed to manage the possibilities? How would it be possible to analyze stylistic or presentational devices methodically? Clearly no one can be expected to identify all the presentational devices that can contribute to the persuasiveness of a given text. So the need is even greater to synthesize the many perspectives and approaches to language analysis into a new stylistics, a rhetorical stylistics. A useful taxonomy for such a method could begin with the natural and productive division used in most of the great rhetorics and figure manuals of the early modern period. These works of the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries have varying systems for classifying the figures, but they tend to separate figures and schemes of words, figures and schemes of sentences, figures of “thought” (pragmatic devices) and arrangement devices. This taxonomy corresponds roughly to the traditional divisions of linguistics into phonology, morphology, semantics, syntax, and pragmatics, and indeed it is possible to reorganize the figures into these categories. The old rhetorical divisions can also be rearranged into Halliday’s analytical template based on three language functions, the ideational, interpersonal, and textual (1996, pp. 58–59). In his system, word and sentence choices encode the rhetor’s construction of content (the ideational level); other
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choices stage the speaker/listener or writer/reader’s mutual relationship (the interactive level), and still others help to produce the impression of a coherent text with interconnected parts (the textual level). Though he certainly had no interest in rhetorical approaches, Halliday’s functions fit the “bloom” of early modern figuration so that, for example, a device like apostrophe (direct address or calling on someone) would be recognized as an interactional device (rhetor-addressee construction) while a device like enumeratio, the numbered list, would be recognized as a method of textual management. But Halldiay’s notion of an ideational or representational function would have to be expanded to include the expression of speech acts and strategies of argument. However, the fit of presentational device to argument scheme or rhetorical appeal will never be absolute. There are certainly some reliable connections (e.g., metaphor expressing analogies) but there will never be a single master list matching a particular linguistic feature with a particular argumentative move. The New Rhetoric does some linking of rhetorical figures to argumentative techniques, but its authors cannot specify the linguistic means for delivering every scheme they identify. It is really better to operate with two great catalogs, one of argumentative moves and one of linguistic devices. The analyst can then select and combine from both lists in any single act of interpretation. For convenience, a methodological approach can build from the formal side, examining in turn the arguments delivered in word choices, sentence construction, interactional bids and passage level devices. (See Appendix I for a method of sampling under these headings.) What follows are examples of a less appreciated device from each of these four categories, and again the point here is to suggest the richness of the possibilities when the insights of the older rhetoric and the newer discourse analysis are combined to create the catalog of a new “rhetorical stylistics.” First, at the level of word choice, stylisticians use the insights of sociolinguists to describe patterns in word choice, phrasing and collocation under the concept of registers. A register refers to the language habits of a particular occupation, profession, vocation, avocation or even social class. So for example there is a police register (both a formal and an informal one), a sports register (both in general and for each sport), a register for each religion and orientation within that religion, and so on (Turner, 1973, pp. 165–176). Because of their situational and social resonance, registers can evoke the authority of certain occupations and appeal to certain audiences by “speaking their language” in a persuasive way. Moving in and out of registers can also signal shifts of address and attitude than can reinforce certain parts of an argument. The following passage from remarks by then General Colin Powell, on the eve of the 1991 invasion of Iraq in Operation Desert Storm, shows both the use of a particular register and a shift out of that register.
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Let me turn now to the Iraqi Army in the Kuwaiti theater of operations. As the secretary [Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney] pointed out, this is a large combined-arms army. It has tanks, it has personnel carriers, it has air defense guns, it has very redundant resilient communications between the different operating echelons of the army. It has stockages of food, ammunition and parts with the army in theater, and they have a very elaborate supply system coming down from the interior of the country to sustain that army. Our strategy to go after this army is very, very simple. First, we’re going to cut it off, and then we’re going to kill it. (New York Times, 24 Janurary 1991)
Powell begins notably in a professional military register. He speaks of a theatre of operations, calls the Iraqi army in Kuwait a combined-arms force with tanks, personnel carriers, air defense guns and redundant resilient communications connecting its operating echelons. It has stockages, not stocks or supplies, of food, as well as ammunition with the army in theatre. All these are terms typical of an official military report and they convey authority and control. The summary in this register in then followed by the succinct statement of strategy, “First we’re going to cut it off and then we’re going to kill it,” rendered in non-specialist colloquial words from the core vocabulary of English derived from Anglo-Saxon.9 The combination of technical assessment followed by brutal intention was no doubt intended to convey competence to a US audience and perhaps, if this register shift could survive translation, a disincentive to the enemy. The Shell advertorial has several such register shifts from what might be called an overall managerial register to a more colloquial, “tell it like it is” register: let’s be clear who gets hurt; knee-jerk reaction; keep you in touch. Many of the most familiar rhetorical figures are devices from the next level, involving sentence-level patterns that epitomize lines of argument. Parallelism, antithesis and antimetabole belong in the sentence category. But in fact any sentence form has a default effect; it disposes or constructs meaning in a certain way. The basic “argumentivity” of language plays itself out at this level. Any syntactic embedding for example, demoting sentence constituents from independent clause to dependent clause or phrase status, backgrounds elements, changes their importance and hence their potential effect. Contentious material may be more acceptable in less noticeable dependent structures. Furthermore, the linear position of constituents in a sentence is also important since an element demoted to a phrase can nevertheless regain emphasis if it is placed at the beginning or ending of a sentence. News reports sometimes use this frontloading of interpretive material. The following sentence, for example, opened a front page New York Times article: “Responding to widespread criticism of the government’s handling of terrorist threats, President Bush called tonight for the creation of a new Cabinet
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department for domestic defense that would combine 22 federal agencies into a single one aimed at preventing future attacks against the United States” (7 June 2002). Before readers learn who did what in the main predication, they are given a negative interpretation or “spin” on the event as a response to criticism, with the further implication that there were problems deserving criticism (Kohn, 2003, p. 170; Bush in fact first called for the creation of such a Cabinet position nine months earlier in his first major speech after 9/11, cited above). The use of a participial phrase to turn an action (responding) into an attribute (the participle functions as an adjective modifying “Bush”), and the placement of that phrase at the opening of a sentence amount to a sentence-level “presentational device,” influencing the reader’s evaluation of the reported event. Given the attention in rhetoric to speaker/audience interactions, rhetorical stylistics also has to include a category attending to the language managing these interactions, from speaker self-fashioning, to meeting “audience demands” (second of the strategic maneuvering categories), to more radical attempts at carving out a receptive audience. In this third category, the rhetorical tradition offers many devices of audience construction as well as advice on more high profile speech acts like threatening or pleading or denouncing (for the fullest catalog of these pragmatic figures see Peacham, 1954). Selecting from the traditional figures, a tactic worth more attention was identified around 80 BCE as the distributio. This device was initially defined as partitioning roles and responsibilities among addressees, but it amounts to focusing the audience’s attention on their differences. The Rhetorica ad Herennium’s example has a speaker sequentially calling on “You” who love the good name of the Senate, who want the equestrian order to prosper, who have parents, who have children (p. 347). The same person could be in all four categories and the divisions could be greater, but this tactic of differential address makes the audience aware of its heterogeneity and perhaps splits it into factions. The final category involves those devices that fulfill what Halliday calls a “textual” function. These are the language choices that manage the coherence of a passage by showing how sentences or sections are related and by providing at key points an overview of what is coming or what has been. Pragma-dialecticians have been especially sensitive to this dimension with careful attention to transition words such as premise, conclusion, concession, and contradiction indicators. The reader’s perception of coherence is also managed by cohesive devices (repetition, anaphoric pronouns, demonstratives, etc., see Halliday and Hasan, 1976), by topic/comment or given/new organization, and by drawing on the audience’s cultural knowledge to make bridging inferences between statements. The basics for promoting coherence (given/new organization and schemas) were never covered in the rhetorical manuals, but under arrangement, organizational schema
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are specified (e.g., the epicheireme at the passage level or the six parts of the ideal oration at the global level) and among the figures many structuring devices are noted (e.g., transitio, the summarizing and forecasting statement). To go again with a less obvious device of textual management, of creating units within a longer text, and with one that van Eemeren and Houtlosser noted in the Shell advertorial, analysts can pay attention to the lengths of sentences in a passage. Texts often have passages grouping or alternating shorter or longer sentences. They sometimes have a section of brief clipped statements or even incomplete fragments, followed by a longer summarizing sentence. In this alternation itself, writers mimic the prosodic contours of actual speech which is highly rhythmical if not metrical. Of a critical passage in the Shell advertorial van Eemeren and Houtlosser write, “At a certain stage (in lines 29–32), some concessions are presented in a staccato of short and unconnected sentences that suggest lack of coherent thinking. They are then followed by a long and carefully constructed sentence that suggests that Shell has the situation under control” (2002, p. 150). The pattern in sentence length manipulation noted here certainly creates linguistic units that map onto argument units. Notably there are three sentences in a row at 6, 5, and 9 words respectively, that respond to an opening question (hypophora) and that are grammatically parallel and even have some repetition (“The oil would certainly continue flowing. The business would continue operating. The vast majority of employees would remain in place.”) The similarities of form here “instruct” readers to group these sentences together, and their content identifies their function as three examples of activities that would continue without Shell. The next sentence, 28 words long, beginning with the adversative but, breaks this pattern and delivers a deflating qualification. Notably it spends its 28 words in three long noun phrases governing one verb (zeugma again). These three “answer” the three short sentences in form, though not point for point, since the first of the three noun phrases in the longer sentence mentions “business practices” while the second of the three short sentences does. So this long sentence is not an instance of what has been called iconicity, the optimal matching of form and content (Leech and Short, 1982; Leff and Sachs, 1990). But this set of four sentences is not the complete story of text construction revealed by sentence length here, for there is, on the printed page, a formatted paragraph unit. This paragraph begins with a question of eleven words and ends with a sentence of ten words. (A more precise evaluation would even consider syllable count.) In other words, the whole paragraph opens and ends with units of roughly the same length. Altogether it has the satisfying prosodic contour of a spoken paragraph that raises an issue, resolves it, and comes to completion. So this textual unit, produced by sentence lengths, presents a complete, well-formed argumentative unit.
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5.
Stylistic accommodation in confrontations
The examples cited so far have all come from “monologic” arguments, but pragmadialectics emphasizes dialogic arguments. In 2006, van Eemeren and Houtlosser described three activity types for argumentation, especially relevant to two-party confrontations: mediation, negotiation and adjudication before a third party (pp. 384–385). While there are certainly striking differences in the institutionalization of these three forms, they can also be regrouped into two basic types. In the first type (mediation and negotiation), the two parties aim to reach an agreement with each other; external pressures may force or prospective long term benefits may favor such a resolution. Both sides know, going in, that they will come out of the process with a position altered somewhat in order to reach an agreement, even though each side may want to accommodate as little as possible to the other. In the second type, adjudication, a judge or jury serves as an external source of resolution; one side wins and the other side loses (van Eemeren and Houtlosser, 2006, p. 304). In the opening years of the Reformation, the Leipzig disputation between Karlstadt and Eck in 1519 would be an example of this type. Both sides disputed several propositions and their debate was submitted to the Paris theological faculty for a decision on who “won.” Needless to say, neither side changed its views at all as a result of that confrontation. If anything their positions hardened. The political process of electioneering and subsequent voting in democracies clearly belongs in this second category, both within parties for nominations and in the general election for ultimate victory. Often the parties in a type II controversy (adjudication) are in each other’s presence. Courtroom proceedings are an obvious example as are the so-called televised “debates” in the American political process. Given the themes of “confrontation” and dialogic argument, it is interesting to ask, in pursuit of “presentational devices,” what marks such exchanges stylistically, especially when arguers are in each other’s presence. Do arguers adapt their style in response to the style of their opponent? Would different styles prevail in Type I and Type II controversies? Would arguers develop distinctive styles in resistance? Or similar styles to co-opt each other’s position? To even begin to address these questions requires the fuller understanding of stylistic possibilities explored above. An obvious opening assumption would be that in disputes where the parties must eventually accommodate their differences, the stylistic choices should converge. The parties eventually have to “speak” one another’s language, as they had to in the Camp David Accords. In disputes for third party adjudication, where one side must lose, there would be no point in minimizing differences or in maneuvering into overlapping positions. In pragma-dialectical terms, the best “rhetorical”
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strategy for arguers would be maximizing their differences to create a clear choice for third part deciders, while their “dialectical” responsibilities, their desire to appear reasonable, would require their minimizing differences to reach resolution. Political contests in two-party systems, where one side has to lose, provide many examples of maximizing differences linguistically. In the 1996 presidential election in the US, for example, the Republican candidate Robert Dole was an elder statesman of the party, a distinguished Senator who had lost the use of an arm in World War II. His campaign, seeking to capitalize on Dole’s associations with the virtues of his generation, coined the metaphor in his convention acceptance speech that Dole would be a “bridge to the past.” His opponent, Bill Clinton, subsequently called his presidency a ‘‘bridge to the future.” It is always dangerous to hang out a term with an antonym available for your opponents. The most famous “debate” in US political history is the Kennedy-Nixon confrontation in 1960, the first to be televised. In this series of four performances, the speakers were given eight minutes for opening statements; they then answered questions posed by newsmen and concluded with three minute closing statements. The texts of such exchanges are a laboratory for exploring the linguistic strategies of arguers in confrontation, and in the space here, just a few observations are possible to indicate the promise and problems in such investigations. The opening statements in the first debate reveal a predictable formulation of antithetical claims.10 Representing the party out of the White House and speaking first, Kennedy claimed that the US was not as strong as it should be nor was it making satisfactory progress. He concluded his opening with, “I think it’s time America started moving again.” Nixon, the current Vice President, made the counter claim in his opening remarks: “I think we find that America has been moving ahead.” Such a clear antithesis is predictable from evenly matched adversaries who need not agree with each other and who need to polarize the deciding audience. Nevertheless, speaking second, Nixon was rather elaborate in marking territory in common with Kennedy, agreeing with Kennedy’s opening comments on how important it was for the US to be strong in the face of communism. This responsiveness to the opponent’s standpoint was not something that Kennedy practiced. One of the biggest differences stylistically in the opening speeches of the first exchange, 26 September 1960, can be found in the interactive dimension. Again, this dimension has to do with how speakers, by self-reference and other forms of address, construct the relationship between themselves, their audience(s), and their opponent, if present. This interactive relationship, or “footing” as Erving Goffman called it, is rarely static, as he also observed (1983, pp. 128, 146). Arguers often adjust and readjust the stance between themselves and others. Kennedy puts himself into his speech frequently; I is the subject/agent in 37 of his 57 sentences. He also speaks for or addresses a collective “we,” uniformly inclusive, referring
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to citizens of the US. Nixon also uses I, though less often, and a collective inclusive we. But he also uses an “exclusive” we that refers only to his party or the administration (e.g. “What kind of programs are we for?”) and even a we of plural reference to himself and Kennedy (“We both want to help…”). In one passage he also involves the immediate audience by directly addressing them as “you,” something which Kennedy never does in his opening. There is a clear difference then in the interactive dimension of their styles, unrelated to the issues debated. Nixon acknowledges the audience and uses complex, perhaps too complex, constructions of larger and smaller groups (see distributio above), while Kennedy, as far as rhetorical agents are concerned, stays with I and collective we creating a clearer relationship between himself and the American people. To focus on word choice issues and the argument tactics they reveal, in the concluding statements of the first debate, the two candidates use very different labeling phrases for one of the issues: Nixon, speaking first this time, referred to “our health care program” as “one that provides for all people over sixty-five who want health insurance.” Kennedy, picking up this issue, nevertheless rephrased it as “medical care for the aged.” Kennedy’s terms are at once less precise and more emotionally powerfully; for an actuarial definition (those over 65) he substitutes “the aged,” a term suggesting feebleness and dependency and hence requiring pity. For “health insurance,” a specific policy goal, he substitutes the vaguer “medical care” which can include services and even emotional support not usually covered by insurance policies. He in effect places what was once a family responsibility in the domain of the state. Now of course he is attributing this position to Nixon, but by rephrasing it as he does, he makes the distance between the current government’s policies and this imputed goal greater. Did he give a “rhetorically sound presentation” of his interlocutor’s position? (van Eemeren and Houtlosser, 2000b, p. 14). Nixon, of course, had no chance to respond at this point. Nor would it ever be possible, in real time exchanges, to catch all the subtle reconstructions of positions in rephrasing. So a very active area to pay attention to in the stylistics of confrontation is how positions are reprised in repeated or synonymous phrasing. This point alone brings up the important but largely ignored issue of what constitutes the acceptable paraphrase of an argument (Fahnestock 2004).
6.
Conclusion
This paper argues for an expanded understanding of what can be involved in identifying the presentational devices in arguments. It recommends a methodical rhetorical stylistics combining the insights of the older tradition with newer methods of language analysis. But generating observations about the language of a text,
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which is easy to do with the checklist provided in the Appendix, should not be an end in itself. Using the techniques of discourse analysis and literary stylistics, it is especially easy to compile all kinds of quantitative data about a text, but these observations are pointless unless they are interpreted. Literary stylisticians interpret by looking for unique features that somehow produce the artistic value of a work; many discourse analysts use their data to decode ideological orientation. Both of these pursuits are somewhat ad hoc and reflective of temporary cultural norms. Argument analysts are in a better position given the explicit nature of the available theories of argument. They work, in effect, with two great catalogs – of argumentative moves and of linguistic devices – selecting and combining from both lists in any single act of interpretation. Linguistic devices or data are only of interest if they can be plausibly linked to the persuasive effects of a text. Rhetorical theory provides a descriptive lexicon for argument production and analysis across its five canons of invention, arrangement, style, memory and delivery. The inventional stage alone involves determining the genus dicendi, the specific issue according to the stases, the topics for generating the logos and recommendations on the remaining appeals to ethos and pathos. The arrangement stage involves planning, against the ideal model of the six-part oration, the best disposition of the three appeals given the audience and situation. The stylistic stage involves meeting those criteria of good style mentioned above: correctness, clarity, appropriateness and especially forcefulness achieved through epitomizing figures of speech. Writers on rhetoric have often observed the recursiveness of these stages so that, for instance, knowing the general purpose of the peroration helps in summoning appropriate matter. Pragma-dialectics also has a very precisely formulated system of argument analysis in its four discussion stages, argument schemes, ten rules for a critical discussion, and three categories of strategic maneuvering: topical resources, audience demand and presentational devices. These three correspond roughly to the rhetorical canons of invention and style. The first two, topical resources and audience demand, link to logos and pathos. The second category, audience demand, could be expanded to include how rhetors construct themselves as well as their audiences in their language choices, thereby projecting an ethos appropriate to the occasion and their goals. The observation that the “speaker” of the Shell advertorial adopts the voice of a father amounts to an observation on constructed ethos (van Eemeren and Houtlosser, 2002, p. 149).The third and final category, presentational devices, is really concerned with how the material of the first two categories is expressed. Presentational devices, sampled methodically, actually contribute to (one could say constitute) any of the three appeals. In short, the complete rhetorical canon may be useful in the pragma-dialectical pursuit of how meeting rhetorical goals can still satisfy dialectical demands since the first two
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elements of strategic maneuvering actually include the standard three appeals and the third element considers their expression. The rhetorical canon will not, however, provide the normative guidelines, the rules for a critical discussion and the fallacies of derailment, which pragma-dialecticians have been so careful to establish. Rhetoric only rules out what is unethical if it is also ineffective. In that respect, rhetoricians, especially those of us who teach the construction as well as the analysis of arguments, can benefit greatly from the pragma-dialectical focus on ethical argumentative practices.
Appendix I: An outline of rhetorical stylistics I. Word Choice Issues Historical layers of English Synonym choice Abstract versus Concrete diction Connotation patterns (auxesis/ meiosis) Level of Generality Functional Categories
Neologisms: foreign borrowings, compounds, derivations (prefixes and suffixes), clipping, blends, conversions, catachresis, acronyms, proper to common nouns, analogical formation, fabrications, onomatopoeia, taboo deformation, pronunciation effects, doubling Historical meaning migration: changing and accumulating meanings; homonyms (homographs and homophones) and polysemy
Language Varieties Low/colloquial, Middle/standard and High/formal levels Situational Varieties (dialects, sociolects, slang) Registers: Occupational, Avocational and Disciplinary Register Shifts and Mixes Familiar Language (prepared phrases, clichés, maxims, allusions)
Tropes Synecdoche Metonymy Metaphor (versus Polysemy; Catachresis) Simile/ Full Analogies/ Allegory and Engima Irony (In spoken versus written texts) Irony and intention
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Litotes Hyperbole Amphiboly and Paradox Schemes and Figures of Word Choice The Schemes: Sound Figures (isocolon, homeoteleuton, assonance, alliteration) Altering single words (metaplasms) Agnominatio Polyptoton (polyptotonic “paths”) Ploche Antanaclasis The Figures: Synonymia (Synonyms and Conceptual drift) Correctio Emphasis (Significatio) Paralepsis
II. Sentence Level Issues Predication Analysis: Choice of Agents / Grammatical Subjects (humans, rhetorical participants (I, we, you), things, abstractions, concepts, “dummy” subjects) Choice of Verbs / Actions (Patterns in tense, aspect, mood, negation, modality, passive vs active, semantic categories) Nominal versus Verbal style Personification (fictio personae) Multiple subjects or verbs (zeugma; hypozeuxis) Ellipsis
Construction Analysis Distribution into main or dependent clauses (subordinate, relative, noun clauses) Modification: Single words / Phrases built on verbs (participial, infinitive) Phrases built on nouns (appositive, absolute construction, resumptive modifier, summative modifier, prepositional phrases) Multiplying and embedding modifiers Amount of modification (minimal to excessive)
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Sentence Architecture Positions of Emphasis: Artificial visual emphasis versus natural emphasis by position: end, opening, grammatical role Loose versus Periodic Sentences Inverted word order (anastrophe, hyperbaton) Iconic Form
Prosody and Punctuation Written versus spoken styles Using punctuation to mimic speech Managing meaning in longer sentences Dramatic prosody: ecphonesis, aposiopesis
Figures of Argument Parallelism (parison/ isocolon): (by syllable count, stress patterns, grammatical structures) Uses of parallelism: comparisons, induction, abduction, in other pairs Antithesis, argument from opposites Antimetabole, argument from inversion Definitio (definition as a figure of speech) Series: class formation and bracketing (partitio, diaeresis, enumeratio, congeries, incrementum, polysyndeton, asyndeton)
III. Interactive Dimension Speaker and Audience Construction Pronoun choice: Uses of I, Uses of you, Genres of Fictional address, Uses of we (inclusive and exclusive), Objective Voice Changing Footing: Managing the Interactive dimension Disidentification Figures of Speaker/Audience Construction: apostrophe, distributio, purging the audience, licentia, figuring speech acts Asking and answering questions: erotema, rogatio, aporia Rogatio and stasis determination Situation and Occasion Highlighting the place and time Creating the Occasion Exigence formation Changing the Circumference
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Incorporating Other Voices Direct Speech (stylized dialect) Indirect Speech Ambiguous zones in indirect speech Reporting Speech Acts Text Acts and Texts as Speakers Invented speakers and speeches (prosopopoeia) Heteroglossia and Double Voicing Multi-voicing (The Blogger’s Specialty) IV. Passage Construction Achieving Coherence Topic/Comment or Given/New patterns Managing and interrupting the topic string Schema-based coherence Reading backwards Semantic Relations between Clauses Explicit with transition words and implicit
Sentence Variety across a passage In statement types (claims, questions, exclamations, commands, wishes) In openings (the 1/3 rule) In length: creating compositional units.
Amplification Quintilian’s five strategies of amplification Copia and Presence: Multa de multis Diminishing
Passage Patterns Enthymeme, syllogism and epicheireme Progymnasmatic “chunks” Global structure and metadiscourse
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Bush, G. W. (2001). Address to a joint session of congress and the american people [Speech transcript]. Retrieved from The White House Website: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/ releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html Cicero (1976). De inventione, De optime genere oratorum, topica (H. M. Hubbell, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Cicero] (1981). De ratione dicendi (Rhetorica ad Herennium) (H. Caplan, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Dowd, M. (2002, March 22). Father knows worst. The New York Times. Eemeren, F. H. van, Grootendorst, R., & Snoeck Henkemans, A. F. (1996). Fundamentals of argumentation theory: A handbook of historical backgrounds and contemporary developments. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (1999). Strategic manoeuvring in argumentative discourse. Discourse Studies, 1, 479–497. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtloser, P. (2000a). Rhetorical analysis within a pragma-dialectical framework. Argumentation, 14, 293–305. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2000b). Rhetoric in pragma-dialectics. Argumentation. Interpretation. Rhetoric, 1. Retrieved from http://argumentation.ru/2000_1/papers/1_ 2000p1.htm Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2002). Strategic maneuvering: Maintaining a delicate balance. In F. H. van Eemeren and P. Houtlosser (Eds.), Dialectic and rhetoric: The warp and woof of argumentation analysis (131–159). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2006). Strategic maneuvering: A synthetic recapitulation. Argumentation, 20, 381–392. Eemeren, F. H. van, Houtlosser, P., & Snoeck Henkemans, A. F. (2007). Argumentative indicators in discourse: A pragma-dialectical study. Dordrecht: Springer. Fahnestock, J. (1999). Rhetorical figures in science. New York: Oxford University Press. Fahnestock, J. (2004). Preserving the figure: Consistency in the presentation of scientific arguments. Written Communication, 21(1), 6–31. Fairclough, N. (2003). Analyzing discourse: Textual analysis for social research. London: Routledge. Fischer, D. H. (1970). Historians fallacies: Toward a logic of historical thought. New York: Harper & Row. Fowler, R. (1991). Language in the news: Discourse and ideology in the press. London: Routledge. Fowler, R. (1996). Linguistic criticism (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Halliday, M. A. K. (1996). Linguistic function and literary style: An inquiry into the language of William Golding’s ‘The Inheritors’. In J. J. Weber (Ed.), The stylistics reader: From Roman Jakobson to the present. London: Arnold (Original work published in 1971). Halliday, M. A. K. (2004). An introduction to functional grammar (3rd rev. ed.). London: Arnold. Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English. London: Longman. Halm, C. (1863). Rhetores Latini Minores. Leipzig: Teubner. Kagame, P. (2008). President Bush participates in joint press availability with President Kagame of Rwanda [Press conference transcript]. Retrieved from The White House Website: http:// www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/02/20080219-6.html Kohn, B. (2003). Journalistic fraud. Nashville, TN: Wind Books.
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Lausberg, H. (1998). Handbook of literary rhetoric: A foundation for literary study (M. T. Bliss, A. Jansen & D. E. Orton, Trans.). Leiden: Brill. Leech, G., & Short, M. (1982). Style in fiction. London: Longman. Leff, M. (2006). Rhetoric, dialectic and the functions of argument. In P. Houtlosser & M. A. van Rees (Eds.), Considering pragma-dialectics (pp.199–209). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Leff, M., & Sachs, A. (1990). Words most like things: Iconicity and the rhetorical text. Western Journal of Speech Communication, 54(3), 252–273. Melanchthon, P. (1963). Elementorum Rhetorices. In C. Bretschneider (Ed.), Corpus Reformatorum, Philippi Melanchthonis opera, quae supersunt omnia (Halle, 1834–60. Vol. 13, pp. 413–506). New York: Johnson (original work published in 1542). Melanchthon, P. (1963). Erotemata dialectices. In C. Bretschneider (Ed.), Corpus Reformatorum, Philippi Melanchthonis opera, quae supersunt omnia (Halle, 1834–60. Vol. 13, pp. 508–759. New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation. (Original work published in 1547). Peacham, H. (1954). The garden of eloquence. Gainesville, FL: Scholars’ Facsimile Reprints. (Original work published in 1577/1593). Perelman, C., & Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1969). The New Rhetoric: A treatise on argumentation (J. Wilkinson & P. Weaver, Trans.). Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press. Powell, C. (1991, January 24). War in the Gulf: Military briefing; Excerpts from briefing at Pentagon by Cheney and Powell. New York Times. Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria (Vols. 1–4) (H. E. Butler, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Schulz, P. J. (2006). Comment on ‘Constrained maneuvering: Rhetoric as a rational enterprise’. Argumentation, 20, 467–471. Sontag, S. (1989). AIDS and its metaphors. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Telhami, S. (2001). The Camp David accords: A case of international bargaining. CIAO Case Study [Retrieved from http://www.ciaonet.org/casestudy/tes01/tes01.pdf]. Tillotson, G. (1968). Matthew Arnold’s prose: Theory and practice. In G. Levine & W. Madden (Eds.), The art of Victorian prose (pp. 73–100). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tindale, C. W. (1999). Acts of arguing: A rhetorical model of argument. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Tindale, C. W. (2006). Constrained maneuvering: Rhetoric as a rational enterprise. Argumentation, 20, 447–466. Turner, G. W. (1973). Stylistics. London: Penguin. Schneider, J. R. (1990). Philip Melanchthon’s rhetorical construal of biblical authority: Oratio sacra. Lampeter, UK: Edwin Mellen Press. Zarefsky, D. (2006). Strategic maneuvering through persuasive definitions: Implications for dialectic and rhetoric. Argumentation, 20, 399–416.
Notes 1. The Accords were more successful at resolving the post 1967 war situation in the Sinai than they were at addressing the issue of the West Bank and Gaza. In separate letters of understanding, Begin referred to these areas by the Biblical names Judea and Samaria, a case of
218 Jeanne Fahnestock
a ntonomasia. Key phrases on conditions were left ambiguous and were understood in different senses by the parties involved (Telhami, 649). 2. Under the heading “Strategic Maneuvering,” however, the project is given a narrower definition in both 2002 and again in 2006: the goals of resolving a dispute (dialectic) and winning an argument (rhetoric) are seen to produce a certain tension and a strategic maneuver is aimed at “diminishing the potential tension’’ (2002, p. 135). Again in 2006, “strategic maneuvering is defined as “the balancing act of reconciling the simultaneous pursuit of dialectical and rhetorical objectives that arguers have to perform in the conduct of argumentative discourse” (377). 3. ‘‘This war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion. It will not look like the air war above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops were used and not a single American was lost in combat. Our response involves more than instant and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success. We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or rest.” http:// www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/print/20010920-8.html. 4. (http;//www.whitehouse.gov/news/release/2008/02/20080219-6.html) Remarks President Bush made during a trip to Africa in February 2008, creating the occasion for a news conference with President Kagame. 5. Reinventing the rhetorical wheel in an excellent book, Writing Science, M. A. K. Halliday identifies a device that he finds used by early Greek scientists, who “took up and developed a particular resource in the grammar of Greek, the potential for deriving from the lexical stem of one word another word of a different class (technically, the transcategorizing potential of derivational morphology):’’ (p. 12). Halliday calls this device “grammatical metaphor.” Citing an example from Newton, he argues, “Because a process, that of ‘refracting’, which was first construed as a verb (the prototypical realization of a process), then comes to be reconstrued in the form of a noun [Refraction] (the prototypical realization of a thing)…In grammatical metaphor, instead of a lexical transformation (of one word to another) the transformation is in the grammar – from one class to another, with the word (here the lexical item refract-) remaining the same.” (p. 13). This language device here is of course well marked in rhetoric as polyptoton. Halliday’s term, grammatical metaphor, which perhaps he chose because it picks up the notion of substitution, is nevertheless an extremely unfortunate one, but it is typical of the term proliferation that comes from discontinuity with the rhetorical tradition. Metaphor belongs in a separate class of tropes based on substations; there is no substitution of an existing term with another term going on here; but forms from the same root are used while the function of the word expands, something which does not happen in metaphor. Halliday also creates the impression that this “grammatical metaphor” is somehow an illicit or confusing move, though he admits it is a natural resource in the language, vastly useful, and persuasively nuanced in suggesting the consistency of a concept in different syntactic roles. 6. Sentence numbering is based on the text in van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2002, pp. 143– 144). Anything beginning with a capital letter and ending with a period or question mark counts as a sentence, with the single exception of the sentences in the quotation from Wura Abiola which are counted as a single sentence. Re Shell as an agent, the “we” in sentence #8, “We
Quid pro nobis 219
should ask,” is taken as inclusive and generic, a rhetorical “we” rather than a reference to Shell which is not named in that part of the text. 7. The full range of devices paid attention to include for the confrontation stage, loaded language, a choice of abstract terms (1999, p. 489); for the opening stage, passive voice (and a consequent absence of agency), antithesis in word choice (if not the full figure antithesis) and addressing the public “as a father would speak to his children” (1999, p. 490); for the argumentation stage, “a business-like style” where the facts speak for themselves [a questioning of agency], rhetorical questions, warnings, a staccato of short, unconnected sentences followed by a longer one and suggestive wording (1999, p. 492); in the concluding stage, an image or metaphor of doom and horror and presumably a veiled counter-accusation and slogan in the final line (1999, pp. 492–493). 8. The identification of this device as a figure of speech illustrates the problems of recovering a usable stylistics from the rhetorical tradition. Lausberg lists this device, defining it as “a manner of argumentation (cf. sec. 371), by which an argument of the opposing party is exploited for the benefit of one’s own party” (p. 346; [Lausberg mentions this device again as one of the “dialectic figures” some pages later but gives the same definition (381)].) However, the texts he quotes supporting this characterization actually concern a different figure: synokeiosis. In fact the definition of this device, quoted from P. Rutilius Lupus, does not match Lausberg’s own opening characterization: “This scheme teaches [how] to connect diverse things and to oppose common opinions with reason’’ (Halm, 17). The second very short definition which Lausberg takes from the Carmen de Figuris (Halm, 68) does use the word conciliatio, explaining “Συνοιχειωσις Conciliatio fit, diversa ubi conciliamus. ‘Prodigus est et parcus idem: nam nescit uterque/ Uti opibus, peccant ambo, res dedecet ambos’” [Synoikeiosis makes a conciliation/ a union, when we reconcile diverse things. ‘The wasteful person is indeed the same as frugal: for both do not know how to use wealth, both are at fault/ transgress, a thing will be dishonored by both’ (Halm, 68–69) The final reference in Lausberg is to Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria (IX. Ii. 64), and this reference is once again to connecting different terms (III, 483). Lausberg does go on for another paragraph on what he calls “an onomasiological variant of conciliatio” which is “the obfuscation of difference in semantically related words.” For this he cites Quintilian (3.7.25) from a section on invention, on how it can be advantageous to call a rash man brave or a prodigal generous and from Aristotle concerning invention in epideictic, on describing people with terms that are closely connected to their real qualities, e.g., calling a simpleton good natured (Freese, 97). Nowhere in any classical text that Lausberg calls on is there a conciliatio as he defines it in his heading. The website Silva Rhetoricae does list conciliatio but identifies it as another form of comprobatio, expressing approbation of a virtue. However, there is in fact a figure which specifies using the opponent’s argument in one’s own favor. It is called inversio (which makes more Latin sense) by Melanchthon and defined as follows: “Inversio, cum ostendimus pro nobis facere argumentum quod contra nos detorquetur, ut: Sepeliisti, igitur occidisti. Potest inverti: Imo si occidissem, non sepeliissem. Nam qui in via publica apud cadaver commoratur dum sepeliat, ubi credibile est homines interventuros esse, hunc non esse sibi male conscium, ista animi securitas declarat. De hoc genere supra dixi, contrarias interpretations ex causis et signis sumi.” [“Inversion, when we show/expose/demonstrate as for us an argument which is directed against us, as: You buried [him], therefore you murdered [him]. It can be inverted: Indeed if I would have murdered [him], I would not have buried [him]. For whoever lingers in the public road with a cadaver while he buries [him],
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where it is likely men will come upon him, this man himself is not conscious of wrongdoing, [he] reveals security of mind.” (Elementa Rhetorices, pp. 488–489). This device is placed by Melanchthon among the figures connected to the dialectical topics; inversio is specifically grouped under arguments from contraries. The rhetorical figure here involves deliberately citing or rehearsing the argument used by an opponent and specifically turning it around, showing that it is a better fit for the arguer’s side than for the opponent’s. It requires a more elaborate speech act than merely using the same premise that an opponent uses. Indeed, to the extent that two arguers can engage each other at all, they must have some premises in common. 9. The English lexicon has a particular feature deriving from its history. English is stratified by its history into a Core vocabulary that comes largely from Anglo-Saxon, a French layer added as a result of the Norman conquest, and a Latinate layer of direct borrowings that were especially numerous in the 15th–17th centuries. The Core vocabulary, because it is the language English-speakers learn as children and use most often, can seem sincere. French words have associations with cultural sophistication and procedures, and Latinate words with formality and disciplinary discourse. To provide an example of the difference in effect: When Martin Luther King Jr. summed up his “I have a dream speech,” he used only words from the core, taken from an old hymn (Free at last, Free at last, thank God almighty Free at last) not from the French or Latinate layer (Liberated finally or Manumitted terminally). His “presentational device” is not a marked figure, though Erasmus drew attention to word choice on the basis of categories like foreign, archaic etc., and such choices could be marked and hence of special significance. 10. The text of the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon debates can be found on the web site of the “Commission on Presidential Debates” (http;//www.debates.org/pages/trans60a.html).
Shifting the topic in Dutch parliament How presentational choices can be instrumental in strategic manoeuvring Yvon Tonnard
1.
Shifting the topic in parliament as a way of strategic manoeuvring
When parties are having a discussion, the issue discussed is often susceptible to change. Sometimes it changes considerably during the discussion and ends up as a completely different subject; at other times the change is minor, and then the new issue is just a reformulation of the initial standpoint. A domain of discourse in which ‘changing the topic’ seems common practice is the political arena. Whether in parliament, in a television debate or in a radio interview, politicians often pass by the topic raised by their opponent or the interviewer by steering the discussion towards a topic that is more convenient to them. The new topic might be preferred because the politician wants to avoid taking a stance in a matter that puts him in an awkward situation. The predominant aim then, is to evade that specific topic. Think, for example, of a politician who is asked to judge the actions of a minister who is a fellow party-member. A slight change of topic then, might make it unnecessary for the politician to take position on that specific matter; In fact, any other topic in which he can take a stance that is less awkward will suffice. The new topic however, can also be more convenient to deal with because it is more appealing to the electorate. In that case, the main point of the change is not to evade an inconvenient discussion, but to bring a particular topic into the limelight. This last motive seems to underlie a lot of the moves made by one of Holland’s best-known politicians, Geert Wilders. From the moment he started his Party for Freedom (2006), his right-wing political views dominated many debates, even abroad – especially since Wilders announced the release of his anti-Koran movie ‘Fitna’.1 The issue that occupies Wilders most is, what he calls, the ‘islamisation’ of the Netherlands: his party believes that Islam is to blame for almost everything that goes wrong in Western society. If we go by what other parliamentarians and
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the media say about his debating skills, he is a real expert in the field of topic shifts. Wilders is often called the head of a one-issue party who manages “to bend the political agenda to his own will” (Hilhorst 2007: 13).2 That means that he manages to make the danger of Islam the topic of almost every possible debate; a topic that seems to be appealing to many Dutch voters.3
1.1
Examples
In order to put the topic of Islam on the parliamentary agenda as many times as possible, Wilders and his party members are using all kinds of agenda-influencing (or topic-shifting) tactics. One of these tactics is to provoke social unrest by raising a highly controversial standpoint on an occasion somewhere outside parliament, for example in a newspaper or a television interview. Due to the social unrest that is caused chances are high that the controversial standpoint will be put on the agenda of the next parliamentary meeting – a meeting originally planned to discuss something else. Wilders used this tactic when he said in a newspaper that the Koran should be forbidden, or at least reduced to the size of a Donald Duck magazine.4 A week after he made this remark a meeting scheduled to discuss a specific report of the Scientific board for Government policy,5 opened with ‘the banning of the Koran’, which is the subject earlier raised by Wilders. Another tactic to draw attention to his favourite topic can be found in his responses to the standpoints of other members of parliament. The following two examples illustrate this tactic. The first example is taken from a debate from 2008 in which the minister of Housing and Integration Vogelaar had to defend her plans for improving some problematic city districts, one of her plans being to restore bad looking houses. Wilders commented on these plans by responding as follows: (1) Wilders: “Does our minister of Housing and Integration really want me to believe that she can transform problematic neighbourhoods into proud and powerful neighbourhoods with some extra paint and youth homes? As if Mohammed B would not have murdered Theo van Gogh if his window frames had been painted once more!”
In this example, the original topic was whether or not providing good housing is the right policy to improve bad neighbourhoods. Wilders changes this topic into whether or not providing some paint and extra youth homes is the right policy to prevent Muslims from murdering people like Theo van Gogh. The second example stems from a debate in March 2008 about the movie ‘Fitna’. Because he is not a member of the government Wilders cannot be called to account for his actions and, therefore, officially the debate was about whether or not
Shifting the topic in Dutch parliament 223
the Prime Minister had acted wisely in warning the whole world that the movie was about to appear without him knowing anything about its contents. However, as could be expected, the members of parliament used this opportunity to attack Wilders on the movie. The following example shows how Wilders defended himself when being attacked by Pechtold, a member of the liberal opposition. (2) Pechtold: “I am trying to figure out how you, once you have the majority, will
deal with Muslims here.” Wilders: “Take it from me that if my party, the PVV, will ever be part of the rule, we will deal with minorities much more nicely than when Islam is in control.”
Here, the original topic is how Wilders would deal with Muslims, but Wilders changes it to how Muslims would deal with minorities.
1.2 Strategic manoeuvring In this presentation I shall focus on the kinds of topic shifts illustrated by these two examples – topic shifts made in responses to standpoints of others. These topic shifts can be characterized as aiming at an exclusion of the original standpoint, which is then followed by the introduction of a new standpoint.6 In accordance with the view of van Eemeren and Houtlosser, I shall analyse these topic shifts as instances of strategic manoeuvring (2002). This means that I presume that Wilders attempts to establish his rhetorical aim to discuss a topic that is appealing to the electorate, while, at the same time, maintaining certain critical standards of reasonableness necessary to resolve the difference of opinion in parliament with his political opponent (van Eemeren and Houtlosser 2002: 134–135). Such an attempt might become unreasonable (and thus fallacious) because changing the topic simply to put forward a topic that is more appealing to potential voters may not always be instrumental in resolving the difference of opinion. In principle though, there is nothing unreasonable about a change of topic. As long as arguers have not agreed on one specific topic, they should have the opportunity to discuss something different. In the pragma-dialectical model for a critical discussion this freedom to change the subject is reflected in the so-called freedom rule, which stipulates that in the confrontation stage there are no restrictions regarding the content of the standpoint that is advanced or the person who advances it (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004: 190–191). According to the freedom rule, each party can put forward any standpoint he wishes to discuss.7 In parliament, though, this dialectical freedom is in some ways restricted. All the examples mentioned stem from debates that aim for calling a member
224 Yvon Tonnard
of government to account for a specific plan or action. In order to establish this aim, the standing orders of parliament stipulate that participants do not have the freedom to change the topic into any topic that is more convenient to them, or to avoid a discussion about that specific topic.8 A contribution to this specific type of discussion can, thus, only be called constructive when participants live up to these rules. The consequence of violating an institutional rule is a possible intervention of the chairman: the chairman is entitled to break off a contribution or make a politician take back specific words. To get the topic shift accepted in such a parliamentary context, Wilders has to accomplish this change within these specific institutional boundaries – or, at least, he has to give the impression that he is doing this. That means that he has to stick to the topic as set by the chairman and give account of his plans and actions.9 As van Eemeren and Houtlosser explained, such an attempt manifests itself in exploiting the available topical potential, the opportunities for framing the addressee’s perspective and the presentational possibilities (2006: 375). In the remainder of this paper, I will focus on these presentational possibilities. To facilitate the analysis of the choice of presentational means, I shall propose a classification of presentational possibilities. By making use of Wilders’ examples, I shall explain how a choice from these different kinds of possibilities might contribute to the acceptance of a shift of topic within a parliamentary context.
2.
A classification of presentational possibilities
The classification of presentational possibilities I shall discuss, can be found in Figure 1. It is a rather abstract scheme that represents at least some of the choices an arguer can make in a particular discussion stage when manoeuvring strategically. As will become clear in the analysis of the examples, all these possibilities have to do with the choice of whether or not to express a particular part of the discourse explicitly or not. I am sure that more distinctions are to be made, but for now I start from the possibilities presented in Figure 1. The reason why the scheme covers only the confrontation stage is that any attempt to change the topic of the discussion is a strategy that is to be situated in the confrontation stage. The aim of this stage is to define the disagreement – that is, to determine what standpoint is at stake and which parties are involved in what way (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004: 60, 135). Changing the topic may be regarded as an attempt to influence this definition of the disagreement.
Shifting the topic in Dutch parliament 225
Figure 1. Presentational possibilities (II, IV and V) in a particular discussion stage
When analysing the Wilders’ examples it will become clear what the five choices, represented by the Roman numerals on the left side of the figure, amount to. A simple explanation is that the figure contains of two levels, the level of the discussion stage (I and II) and the level of the move (III, IV and V),10 and at each of these two levels a distinction is made between choices that concern the material or topics of the discussion, and choices that concern the presentational means. Although I shall not discuss these topical choices (number I and III), they are represented in the scheme because it is hard to analyse the one without the other. For now, I will concentrate in particular on the presentational choices represented at II, IV and V. For each kind of possibility I shall indicate how it is being used by Wilders to accomplish his rhetorical aim to discuss the danger of Islam within the institution of a parliamentary debate: an institution that stipulates he cannot evade his political responsibilities and has to stick to the topic as is set by the chairman. Starting from the three aspects of strategic manoeuvring it can be said that Wilders will try to accomplish these contrasting aims by choosing from the available topical and presentational possibilities the one that is expected to be most effective. This choice is the one that is most in line with his own preferences and is expected to be most convincing to his audience, the political opponent. Since Wilders is not aiming for just any new topic, he will prefer to determine the new topic himself and to avoid any sub-discussion that might put him off track. The expected preferences of his political opponent depend on the opponent at hand; however, they at least contain the expectation that Wilders attempts to play the game by the institutional rules.11
226 Yvon Tonnard
3.
Strategic possibilities at the level of the discussion stage
The first two choices in Figure 1 concern the level of the discussion stage. The choice under (I) is of a topical nature; the choice under (II) concerns the presentational possibilities for presenting this topical choice.
Figure 1A. Strategic possibilities at the level of the discussion stage
3.1
Topical possibilities (I)
Number (I) in Figure 1 refers to a choice between the different routes that might lead to the result preferred by Wilders (in the figure represented by a choice between route R1 and route R2).12 In the examples discussed here, this result is a change of the discussion topic. A route consists of all the moves that have to be made by both parties in order to accomplish the result that is aimed for. The potential of possible and allowable routes can be derived from the dialectical profile of the confrontation stage. Such a profile specifies what sequential patterns of moves the parties are allowed to make in a specific stage of the discussion (van Eemeren et al. 2007: 18). In this case, the routes that might lead to a topic shift all start from the antagonist, because he is the party that tries to establish the shift. From a pragma-dialectical perspective, the antagonist’s contribution could consist of critical doubt, agreement, or making a request for elucidation or specification (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004: 78). These three possible reactions are represented in Figure 2 at turn 2. Although they are not further specified in the figure, these reactions could all be the start of a route that leads to a topic different from ‘p’. However, since the motive for preferring the one route over the other is not my main concern here, I only specified the route applying to the examples I would like to discuss.
Shifting the topic in Dutch parliament 227
Proposition p !
P
P
"
RUDP
P
!
P
RETRACT P ;EXIT DISCUSSION=
R
Proposition r !"
A = party A putting forward +/p B = party B responding to +/p ?(+/p) = responding by casting doubt rud/p = responding by requesting for a usage declarative (elucidation or a specification) +/p = responding by agreeing r = start of a new discussion about proposition r retract +/p = party A will not defend his standpoint
Figure 2. Topical choice for a specific route in the confrontation stage that leads to a different topic (new discussion)
As Figure 2 shows, I presume that Wilders responds to his opponent with a reaction of critical doubt. In the example in which he responds to the standpoint of the minister of Housing and Integration (example 1), he clearly advances critical doubt about the effectiveness of her plans to improve bad neighbourhoods. In the second example this doubt is not expressed that clearly. Because of institutional conventions, Pechtold’s contribution is formulated as a question for information, but it has to be understood as a standpoint: Pechtold is of the opinion that Muslims will not be treated well in case Wilders ever seizes the majority. Wilders reacts by saying: Take it from me that if my party, the PVV, will ever be part of the rule, we will deal with minorities much more nicely than when Islam is in control. Although he does not explicitly say so, here critical doubt regarding Pechtold’s standpoint is one of the possible implications of what Wilders says. The utterance could be understood as something like: ‘I doubt whether I would not treat Muslims well, especially when you compare it with how they would treat non-Muslims’. For now, the only important thing to notice considering the possible routes is that simply picking the route that starts by expressing doubt is not enough strategic manoeuvring to establish a topic shift in the way preferred by Wilders: Turn 3 in Figure 2 shows that the route is not leading to a topic shift for certain because the opponent could still maintain his standpoint, and turn 4 in Figure 2 shows
228 Yvon Tonnard
that the route is not putting Wilders in complete control over the new proposition because it could just as well be the opponent who advances the new standpoint.
3.2 Presentational possibilities (II) Apart from choosing a specific route, Wilders can also, and at the same time, manoeuvre strategically by choosing an effective way of presenting the moves he makes in this route. This choice is represented at number (II) in Figure 1. It amounts to a choice between explicitly expressing a particular slot (left circle), or leaving it implicit (right circle). Due to the fact that a slot in the profile does not have to be expressed explicitly for a route to be reasonable (van Eemeren et al. 2007: 17), a discussant has the possibility to leave particular slots implicit and to anticipate how they might be filled in by his opponent. Such a way of proceeding could simply be a way to come to the heart of the matter as quickly as possible. However, such a possibility can, of course, be exploited for rhetorical purposes as well: a discussant can anticipate the result of filling in a slot that is most convenient for establishing his own rhetorical aim. When looking at the route taken in Figure 2, discussant B (who wants to change the topic of the debate) might benefit from anticipating the result of turn 3. The result favoured is, of course, a retraction of the opponent’s standpoint. There seem to be two options to anticipate this result. These options are illustrated in Figure 3 and Figure 4. In Figure 3, turn 3 is not expressed explicitly, which means that discussant B will put forward critical doubt, immediately followed by the introduction of the new standpoint (+/r). In Figure 4, turn 2 and 3 are not expressed explicitly, which means that discussant B simply puts forward his new standpoint (+/r).
Proposition p
! P
"
P
!
P
RETRACT P ;EXIT DISCUSSION=
"
Proposition r
R
Figure 3. Presentational possibility 1: implicit performance of turn 3
Shifting the topic in Dutch parliament 229
Proposition p
! P
"
P
!
P
RETRACT P ;EXIT DISCUSSION=
"
Proposition r
R
Figure 4. Presentational possibility 2: implicit performance of turn 2 and 3
3.3 How does Wilders exploit these presentational possibilities? Both ways of presenting this route can be found in the examples of Wilders. The first example, consisting of Wilders’ response to the plans of the minister of Housing and Integration, is an illustration of Figure 3. In the first part, Wilders says: Does our minister of Housing and Integration really want me to believe that she can transform problematic neighbourhoods into proud and powerful neighbourhoods with some extra paint and youth homes? This part can be understood as an explicit expression of severe doubt about the effectiveness of the plans of the minister (?(+/p)). The question is immediately followed by a remark that, together with the first part of the utterance, can be understood as a new standpoint (+/r). By saying As if Mohammed B would not have murdered Theo van Gogh when his window frames had been painted once more! Wilders is putting forward a different standpoint than originally proposed by the minister: The discussion is no longer about whether or not the minister is capable of improving bad neighbourhoods with the proposed measures, but about whether or not providing some paint and extra youth homes is the right measure to stop Muslims from murdering people like Theo van Gogh. The second example, consisting of Wilders’ response to the accusations of Pechtold, is an illustration of Figure 4. Here Wilders is saying: “Take it from me that if my party, the PVV, will ever be part of the rule, we will deal with minorities much more nicely than when Islam is in control.” In this response, Wilders puts forward a standpoint about a slightly different topic without expressing doubt. With this move Pechtold is given the opportunity to pick up the new standpoint of Wilders without explicitly retracting his own initial standpoint. The initial standpoint was whether or not Muslims would be treated well in case Wilders
230 Yvon Tonnard
ever seizes the majority. Wilders then changes it to whether or not minorities will be treated well in case Islam ever seizes the majority.
3.4 Why these choices might be strategically successful Considering Wilders’ rhetorical aim the second possibility (Figure 4) seems to be the most suitable: it is the fastest route to present the topic he wishes to discuss, a topic appealing to his potential electorate. However, when taking into consideration the institutional context, the second possibility does not seem to be the best choice: If Wilders simply puts forward the topic of Islam, the opponent or the chairman might accuse him of not being responsive or of not sticking to the topic as it was set by the chairman. Therefore, the first possibility (Figure 3) might be a better option when trying to reach his rhetorical aim and the aims imposed by the institutional context; Figure 3 provides at least the opportunity to be responsive. However, this option raises a different problem: How can you cast doubt concerning a standpoint and at the same time avoid a discussion about that standpoint? This discrepancy between Wilders’ rhetorical aim and what is expected of him in the institutional context could be more or less ‘resolved’ by making use of other presentational possibilities that exist at the level of the move.
4.
Strategic possibilities at the level of the discussion move
The next three possibilities in Figure 1 concern the level of the discussion move. The choice under (III) is, again, one of a topical nature; the choices under (IV) and (V) concern the possibilities for presenting this topical choice.
Figure 1B. Strategic possibilities at the level of the discussion move
Shifting the topic in Dutch parliament 231
4.1 Topical possibilities (III) Number (III) in the figure amounts to a choice from the various paraphrases of the moves capable of realizing the function of a particular slot (in the figure represented by a choice between paraphrase P1 and paraphrase P2).13 I shall not discuss these expressions in detail; a brief explanation hopefully suffices. The paraphrases have to be understood as allowable substitution instances of a particular slot in the dialectical profile. ‘Allowable’ means that they relate to the utterance of the previous speaker and do not obstruct the resolution process. Van Eemeren and Grootendorst (2004) have explained with help of speech act theory what might constitute such an allowable move. For each discussion stage and the moves constituting that stage they have indicated which type(s) of speech act are instrumental in realizing the aim of that particular stage. Considering, for example, the slot in which critical doubt is put forward, the pragma-dialectical theory stipulates that the expression has to be, or has to be reconstructed as, a ‘commissive’ of a particular subtype in which the speaker makes clear that he does not accept the assertive just put forward by the other party.14 The different paraphrases for the move filling this particular slot might then be derived from the grounds for not accepting the standpoint of the opponent: these grounds specify how a discussant can make clear that he is not committing himself to the propositional content of the assertive as it has been put forward by the other party. Houtlosser has formulated several grounds for not accepting a standpoint on the basis of the correctness conditions for putting forward a standpoint (1995: 106–107). Starting from these grounds, discussant B (who wants to shift the topic of the debate) could utter his critical doubt by means of, for example, one of the following paraphrases. These are three possible paraphrases out of a list of five: 1. I do not believe that the standpoint of my opponent is true. 2. I do not believe that the standpoint of my opponent is of importance. 3. I do not believe that my opponent is able to produce reasons in support of his standpoint. I shall not discuss why Wilders might have preferred a specific paraphrase over another, but only indicate what choice he seems to have made. In example 1, Wilders fills in two slots: one in turn 2 and one in turn 4 (Figure 3). In turn 2, critical doubt is advanced about the truth of the standpoint of the minister. This doubt is actually so severe, that Wilders’ reaction can be understood as putting forward the opposite standpoint; he really disagrees with the plans of the minister. The paraphrase used to express his non-acceptance is therefore: ‘I believe that the standpoint of my opponent is not true’. This expression is not only an assertive by means of which a standpoint is advanced, but it can also be reconstructed as a
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commissive by which critical doubt is put forward (van Eemeren, Grootendorst and Snoeck Henkemans 2002: 8–9). In both example 1 and 2, the slot in turn 4 (which is the start of a new discussion) is filled in by advancing a standpoint. The paraphrase for putting forward a standpoint is: ‘My standpoint is that r is the case’ (Houtlosser 1995: 99). In example 1 Wilders chose to counter the standpoint of the minister by putting forward the opposite standpoint. Simply picking this specific paraphrase is still not enough strategic manoeuvring, though, to meet both Wilders’ rhetorical aim and the institutional ones. Figure 3A is a representation of what has been accomplished by the choices discussed so far: the choice to pick a route (I) and to present it in a specific way (II), and the choice to pick a specific paraphrase to fill in specific slots of the route (III). AD Proposition p ! -Y STANDPOINT IS THAT GOOD HOUSING WILL IMPROVE B NEIGHBOURHOODS ; P=
" ) BELIEVE THAT GOOD HOUSING WILL NOT IMPROVE BAD NEIGHBOURHOODS ; P=
P !
Proposition r "
RETRACT P ;EXIT DISCUSSION=
-Y STANDPOINT IS THAT SOME EXTRA PAINT AND YOUTH HOMES WILL NOT STOP -USLIMS FROM MURDERING PEOPLE LIKE 4HEO VAN 'OGH ; R=
Figure 3A. Example 1
When looking at Figure 3A, there are two problems left. The first concerns Wilders’ rhetorical aim: how can Wilders accomplish a smooth and quick topic shift when he is responding to the standpoint he is trying to avoid? This problem concerns turn 2: by responding to the standpoint of the minister, there is a danger that his opponent will ask Wilders to defend his opposite standpoint. This might lead to a discussion in which the new standpoint does not get a chance, or to a discussion about the acceptance of the new standpoint.15 A second problem concerns one of the institutional aims: how does Wilders prevent that parliament accuses him of not sticking to the topic when he is, as can be seen in turn 4, indeed trying to change the topic? Figure 4A is a representation of example 2 and what has been accomplished by the choices discussed so far.
Shifting the topic in Dutch parliament 233
Proposition p
! -Y STANDPOINT IS THAT -USLIMS WILL BE TREATED BADLY IN CASE 7ILDERS SEIZES A MAJORITY ; P=
"
P
!
P
"
-Y STANDPOINT IS THAT NON -USLIMS WILL BE TREATED BADLY IN CASE )SLAM EVER SEISES A MAJORITY ; R=
RETRACT P ;EXIT DISCUSSION=
Proposition r
Figure 4A. Example 2
Looking at Figure 4A, the main problem is that Wilders is not taking into account the institutional aims. The first question is how Wilders prevents parliament from accusing him of not being responsive when he is indeed not responding to the standpoint put forward (as can be seen in turn 2). The second question is how he prevents parliament from accusing him of not sticking to the topic when he is indeed trying to change it (as can be seen in turn 4).
4.2 Presentational possibilities: What to say and how to say it (IV and V) Apart from choosing a specific paraphrase, Wilders can also manoeuvre strategically by choosing, at the same time, an effective way of presenting that paraphrase. These presentational possibilities are represented at number (IV) and (V) in Figure 1 and they amount to two different choices of implicitness. Both these choices concern the different elements of a paraphrase. These elements are the different functional parts of a particular speech act that constitute the communicative function16 and the propositional content of the speech act. Based on Clark (1991: 207) and also Houtlosser (1995: 99) I presume that the assertive ‘I believe that p is not the case’ can be divided into four elements: I (element 1) believe (element 2) that a proposition p (element 3) is not the case (element 4). The first element refers to the one who is committed to the assertion, the second to the extent to which the arguer is committed to the assertion, element three is the proposition and element four refers to the position that is taken towards the proposition. The first presentational choice is whether or not to express every element of the paraphrase. This choice is represented at number (IV) in Figure 1: a discussant can put a specific element into words (represented by the filled-up circle on the left) or he can leave the element implicit (represented by the empty circle on the
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right). Compare, for example, the utterance ‘I believe p is the case’ with ‘P is the case’. When saying ‘P is the case’ both the person who is committed as the extent to which that is the case are left implicit. Yet, the extent to which the speaker is committed to the assertion seems to be strong. This effect is accomplished, as Hooper explains, “by suspending the implication that the speaker knows the proposition to be true” (1975: 101). In specific circumstances, both possibilities might have their own strategic advantage. A last presentational choice that amounts to a kind of implicitness is represented at number (V) in Figure 1: When putting an element into words an arguer can choose to express that element in a direct manner, or to convey this element by means of an expression with a different meaning, that is in an indirect manner. Think for example of the difference between ‘That is a good idea’ and ‘Do you think that to be a good idea?’: the first utterance is a standpoint uttered by means of an assertive, the second utterance is a directive that can be reconstructed as an assertive by means of which a standpoint is uttered.
4.3 How does Wilders exploit these presentational possibilities? In example 1 Wilders especially exploits the possibilities mentioned under (V). The communicative function is presented indirectly; the propositional content is presented directly. I shall explain how Wilders is doing this and what strategic advantage such a way of presenting might yield. In the first part of the example Wilders responds to the minister’s claim that good housing will improve bad neighbourhoods, by saying: Does our minister of housing and integration really want me to believe that she can transform problematic neighbourhoods into proud and powerful neighbourhoods with some extra paint and youth homes? With this question, Wilders is not directly saying that he is the one who is to a certain extent committed to the proposition that is uttered: he is not literally putting forward an assertion that says ‘I believe that good housing cannot improve bad neighbourhoods’. However that it ís an assertion of this import, can be deduced from the fact that the question cannot be intended literally: Wilders already knows the answer to his question, because he knows that the minister is of the opinion that her plans will be effective. The question is thus meant as a rhetorical question. The literal meaning, which is performed by a directive speech act, is irrelevant and the intended meaning is indirectly performed by means of a different speech act. Wilders’ rhetorical question can be reconstructed as an assertive by means of which non-acceptance is put forward.17 But why formulate a reaction of non-acceptance by means of a rhetorical question? As has been indicated, among others by Snoeck Henkemans (2006: 1311) and also by
Shifting the topic in Dutch parliament 235
Slot (1993: 131), the general effect of a rhetorical question is that the proposition in question is presupposed to be already acceptable for the other party. Snoeck Henkemans explains that by means of a rhetorical question the arguer is making an assertion in which he presents the acceptance of the proposal as unproblematic: because there is no other possible answer to the question, the speaker simply expects to induce the same commitment in the addressee (2006: 1311). Hence, Wilders’ use of ‘And you want me to believe that?’ (which seems to be an idiomatic expression for rhetorical questions) presupposes that the unacceptability of the standpoint of the minister is something agreed upon, not only by Wilders but also by the minister. In the second part of the example Wilders proceeds along these lines by adding a premise that starts with ‘as if ’. In line with the first part, the second part can be read as: ‘As if you want me to believe that Mohammed B would not have murdered Theo van Gogh when his window frames had been painted once more!’ By formulating this part in the same vein as the first part, Wilders is making the minister responsible for the content of this premise, and the linked implicit premise, as well. The implicit premise entails that improving bad neighbourhoods can only be done by stopping Muslims from murdering people like Theo van Gogh. The implication that the minister knows that her standpoint cannot be true, becomes quite plausible by the words chosen to describe the minister’s standpoint. This choice of words illustrates how a direct way of expressing the propositional content can be used when manoeuvring strategically. In the first part Wilders reformulates ‘good housing’ as ‘some extra paint and youth homes’, and in the second part he makes ‘bad neighbourhoods’ synonymous with ‘Mohammed B murdering Theo van Gogh’. When the effect of the rhetorical question and the ridiculous reformulation are taken together, Wilders makes it seem as if the minister was quite stupid to put forward the standpoint that she did: of course she does not want anyone to believe that she can prevent Muslims from murdering people like Theo van Gogh by providing some extra paint and youth homes. In the second example Wilders exploits, again, the possibilities mentioned under (V), however in this example he is not indirect at all. He uses every word in its direct meaning, although in a very strategic way. I shall explain how Wilders is doing this and what strategic advantage such a way of presenting might yield. Pechtold is saying: I am trying to figure out how you, once you have the majority, will deal with Muslims here. The standpoint expressed by means of this question is based on two key concepts, that of ‘majority’ and that of ‘Muslims’. Pechtold questions whether Muslims will be treated well in case Wilders seizes the majority in parliament. Wilders responds by saying: Take it from me that if my party, the PVV, will ever be part of the rule, we will deal with minorities much more nicely than when Islam is in control. In this response Wilders makes use of the same two
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concepts as his opponent, Pechtold. However, he is contrasting and then twisting these concepts: he puts majority versus minority and Muslims versus non-Muslims and uses them the other way around as his opponent did. Hence, in his answer it is not hís party that has the majority, but Islam, and, as a consequence, it is not the Muslims that constitute a minority, but the people who are not Muslims. In rhetoric there are figures of speech with similar characteristics: the crossing of words is typical for figures as an ‘antimetabole’ and a ‘chiasmus’; the contrastive concepts can be found in an ‘antithesis’. However, according to their classical descriptions these figures are always established within one utterance, and not, as is the case here, in utterances by two speakers. So in a strict sense, Wilders’ formulation cannot be labelled as one of these figures. Why did Wilders choose to formulate his response as such? The advantage of using a figure of speech similar to these classical figures is that Wilders’ utterance has to be understood as a superlative of Pechtold’s standpoint. By describing a future scenario that is more frightening than the one of his opponent Pechtold, the standpoint of the latter becomes unimportant: why should anyone worry about how Wilders will treat Muslims, when the real danger is that we, non-Muslims, might be treated badly by them?
4.4 Why these choices might be strategically successful How do these presentational choices contribute to getting a topic shift accepted within the institutional context of parliament? Considering example 1, there were two problems left to be solved. The first problem for Wilders was to accomplish a smooth and quick topic shift while, at the same time, responding to the standpoint he is trying to avoid. The second problem was to prevent parliament from accusing him of not sticking to the topic while changing it. Wilders’ choice of specific presentational means can be analysed as an attempt to solve both these problems. By using a rhetorical question he is able to present his own standpoint as something agreed upon by the minister as well. He thereby implies that the minister has no grounds for not agreeing with him that the discussion should be about something else. A rhetorical question makes it possible to respond to a standpoint and, at the same time, avoid a discussion about that standpoint. The second problem seems to be ‘resolved’ by combining the rhetorical question with a reformulation. By presenting a (ridiculous)18 reformulation of what the minister intended to say, it becomes hard to accuse Wilders of changing the topic: after all, the minister intended to put forward this standpoint herself.19 In example 2, there were, again, two problems left. In this example both problems relate to the institutional context. The first is to avoid an accusation of not
Shifting the topic in Dutch parliament 237
sticking to the topic; the second problem is to prevent parliament from accusing him of not being responsive. Again, Wilders’ choice of specific presentational means can be analysed as an attempt to solve both these problems. The choice for using the same two key concepts as his opponent can be interpreted as an attempt to stick, at least to some extent, to the original topic: by presenting the topic shift by means of the same terminology as the original topic, the shift might pass by unnoticed. Wilders tries to solve the second problem by presenting his standpoint as opposed to and more frightening than Pechtold’s standpoint: this way of presenting makes it appear that Pechtold’s standpoint is unimportant, which is in fact an implicit way of responding to Pechtold: in an implicit way Pechtold puts forward the second paraphrase for uttering critical doubt, which is: ‘I do not believe that the standpoint of my opponent is of importance’.20
5.
Conclusion
The aim was to show how strategic manoeuvring manifests itself by exploiting specific presentational possibilities. An arguer can make different kinds of presentational choices that leave parts of the discourse implicit: he can perform moves implicitly, he can perform elements of the performed speech act implicitly and he can perform the intended meaning of these elements implicitly. As the Wildersexamples made clear, all these choices (whether the explicit or the implicit possibility was chosen) may contribute to accomplish one’s rhetorical aim within the institutional setting of parliament. In the case of Wilders: to discuss a topic appealing to the electorate in a setting in which most topic shifts are not allowed.
References Clark, H. (1991). Responding to indirect speech acts. In S. Davis (Ed.), Pragmatics, a reader (pp. 199–229). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Duursma, L., & Bos, R. van den (2008, September 19). Foei! U richt zich tot de kiezer. NRC Handelsblad. Edwards, A. R. (1993). De bijdrage van politici aan maatschappelijke discussies. In H. Kloosterhuis & H. J. Plug (Eds.), Het redelijke debat. Argumentatie in juridische, politieke en maatschappelijke discussies (pp. 41–57). Amsterdam: Waterland van Wezel. 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 pragma-dialectical approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2002). Strategic maneuvering: 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. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2007). Seizing the occasion: Parameters for analyzing ways of strategic manoeuvring. In F. H. van Eemeren, J. A. Blair, C. A. Willard & B. Garssen (Eds.), Proceedings of the Sixth Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation (pp. 375–380). Amsterdam: Sic Sat. Eemeren, F. H. van, Houtlosser, P., & Snoeck Henkemans, A. F. (2002). Argumentation. Analysis, evaluation, presentation. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Eemeren, F. H. van, Houtlosser, P., & Snoeck Henkemans, A. F. (2007). Argumentative indicators in discourse. A pragma-dialectical study. Dordrecht: Springer. Hilhorst, P. (2007, December 18). De anti-politicus van het jaar. De Volkskrant. Hooper, J. (1975). On assertive predicates. In J. Kimball (Ed.), Syntax and Semantics 4 (pp. 91–124). New York: Academic Press. Houtlosser, P. (1995). Standpunten in een kritische discussie. Een pragma-dialectisch perspectief op de identificatie en reconstructie van standpunten (Dissertation, University of Amsterdam, 1995). Amsterdam: IFOTT. Reglement van Orde van de Tweede Kamer (2008) [Retrieved January, 2009, from http://www. tweedekamer.nl/over_de_tweede_kamer/reglement_van_orde/index.jsp] Slot, P. (1993). How can you say that? (Dissertation, University of Amsterdam, 1993). Amsterdam: IFOTT. Snoeck Henkemans, A. F. (2007). Manoeuvring strategically with rhetorical questions. In F. H. van Eemeren, J. A. Blair, C. A. Willard & B. Garssen (Eds.), Proceedings of the Sixth Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation (pp. 1309–1315). Amsterdam: Sic Sat.
Notes 1. The short movie ‘Fitna’ was released on 27 March 2008 on the Internet site www.liveleak. com. The movie consists of a compilation of Koran pages and archive material. Wilders indicated that the aim of the movie was to point at the dangers of the Koran and the ideology of Islam. Especially the coming release of the movie caused a lot of commotion in the Netherlands (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitna_(film)). 2. Although Wilders disagrees with the characterisation of being a one-issue politician, he said in an interview: “Islam absolutely remains our core-business. […] The Party for Freedom has never been a one-issue party, but it is necessary to put forward full-fledged standpoints on other issues as well” (www.nu.nl/ 11 Sep.2008). 3. The Party for Freedom gained 9 seats in parliament during the last elections (2006), which makes it the fifth largest party of the Netherlands. 4. Wilders made this claim in a letter to the editor, which was published in de Volkskrant on 8 Aug. 2007. 5. Wetenschappelijke Raad voor het Regeringsbeleid (WRR)
Shifting the topic in Dutch parliament 239
6. The introduction of the new standpoint can be analysed as the confrontation stage of a new (sub-)discussion. 7. The fact that a shift of topic is in itself not violating a discussion rule, does not mean that a topic shift never leads to a fallacious discussion move. 8. The standing orders of parliament stipulate, amongst others, that in case a speaker deviates from the topic at issue, the chairman shall request him to get back to the topic at issue (Reglement van Orde 2008: 29). An obligation that originates from the right of information is that members of the government have to provide the information that is asked for by the parliament, which means that they have to respond to the questions asked: Parliamentarians have to have enough information to judge the performance of the government (www.parlement.com). 9. In contrast to members of the Government, parliamentarians are not by rule obliged to give account of their plans and actions when being questioned by parliament (except when they submit their own bill). However, in practice also parliamentarians seem inclined to provide answers; they hardly ever say that they do not have to answer a question. The reason is that because of their representative role parliamentarians are expected to take position in matters that concern society – an expectation that is shared by the parliament and the electorate. Hence, it could be called ‘common practice’ that also parliamentarians are responsive to the standpoints put forward by their colleague MP’s. 10. The distinction between the levels stems from the different levels at which strategic manoeuvring can be analysed: at the level of the discussion as a whole, at the level of the discussion stage, and at the level of the argumentative move (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004). At these levels the arguer’s aim to resolve the difference of opinion in his own favour, can be specified further. In the confrontation stage, for example, the aim is to achieve a definition of the disagreement that favours the issue the arguer wants to discuss and the positions he would like to assume (van Eemeren and Houtlosser 2002: 138). 11. It is often said that a politician uses the debate in parliament not to convince his direct opponent, but rather his electorate that he is the best representative (Edwards 1993: 62; Duursma and van den Bos 2008). Although there is certainly a case for this, it does not mean that the politician is not taking the opponent seriously at all. Even if the politician would only be interested in addressing the electorate it is still likely that he takes into account the dialectical and institutional aims. If he would not do this, the opponent (or chairman) might break of the attempt to convince the electorate. Therefore, I assume that a politician takes at least into account that his opponent expects him to play the democratic game by the rules. 12. There might be more routes in the profile that lead to a specific result than just two. 13. The amount of possible paraphrases is different for each slot in the profile. 14. I am leaving aside the grounds for not accepting the way in which the assertive is performed. 15. Vogelaar will probably not accept that ‘good neighbourhoods’ is changed into ‘Muslims who do not murder people like Theo van Gogh’ and that ‘good housing’ is changed into ‘some extra paint and youth homes’.
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16. The meaning of the term ‘communicative function’ refers to the way it is used by van Eemeren and Grootendorst in ‘Argumentation, communication and fallacies’ (1992: 26). 17. The reconstruction of the indirect speech act can be justified as follows (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992): Questions like the one uttered by Wilders are violating Grice’s co-operative principle because they are redundant and insincere. When the question is taken as a different speech act, the utterance regains its relevance and the principle of co-operation is no longer violated. 18. The fact that it is a ridiculous reformulation does not contribute to the strategic manoeuvre of shifting the topic, but to a manoeuvre aimed at polarizing the discussion parties. The latter is very closely related to a shift of topic: a politician often does not only want to address a topic that is appealing to the electorate, he also wants to make clear that he (or his party) is, in contrast to all other politicians, the only one who is taken the topic seriously. 19. Here a shift of topic leads to a violation of a discussion rule: reformulating the standpoint of one’s opponent as it were the opponent’s standpoint is a straw man fallacy (violation of the standpoint rule) (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004: 191). 20. As in example 1, the choice of presentational means might also contribute to the strategic manoeuvre of polarizing the discussion parties. By using the two concepts in a crosswise manner, Wilders is able to describe Islam as a danger only recognized by his own party.
The contribution of praeteritio to arguers’ confrontational strategic manoeuvres A. Francisca Snoeck Henkemans
1.
Introduction
In this paper I investigate what role the stylistic device of praeteritio can play in arguers’ attempts to reconcile their rhetorical with their dialectical aims by manoeuvring strategically. In my discussion of praeteritio I will thus be making use of the theoretical framework that Frans van Eemeren and Peter Houtlosser developed in the last ten years, which consists of an integration of rhetorical insight in the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation. By way of such an integrated approach, van Eemeren and Houtlosser aim to do justice to the fact that there is a rhetorical as well as a dialectical dimension to ordinary argumentative practice (2002: 9). The research I shall report on here, forms part of a larger project in which insights from classical rhetoric, pragmatics and modern stylistics are used to explore the possibilities for strategic manoeuvring with specific presentational means. To this end, for each stage of an argumentative discussion, I examine what role stylistic devices such as metonymy, rhetorical questions and praeteritio can play in effectively presenting the topical choices that arguers have made (Snoeck Henkemans 2005; 2007). Since strategic manoeuvring is a way of dealing with the potential tension between dialectical obligations and rhetorical effectiveness, an important aim of the research is to clarify how the stylistic devices in question can contribute to both the dialectical and the rhetorical aims of arguers. With respect to the dialectical aims, it has to be specified which allowable moves in the four dialectical discussion stages can be presented by means of the stylistic device in question. In order to explain why it could be to the advantage of the arguer to present a certain move by means of a particular stylistic device, it also has to be made clear which rhetorical aims could be achieved by making use of that device in the presentation of a
242 A. Francisca Snoeck Henkemans
particular move. Finally, it has to be established what different forms the device in question may take. Not all rhetorical questions have the same form, and this is also true for praeteritio. It is therefore important to investigate whether there are different manifestations of a specific device that may influence the suitability of that device for presenting a specific type of move and thus create particular possibilities for strategic manoeuvring. In this paper, I shall first pay attention to the ways in which praeteritio can be realized in discourse. Next, I shall give an analysis of the effects the use of praeteritio may have due to the presentational means that are employed. Then I shall give a general idea of what the possibilities for strategic manoeuvring with this device might be in the different stages of an argumentative discussion. Finally, I shall focus on the confrontation stage and discuss the ways in which praeteritio may contribute to arguers’ confrontational manoeuvres.
2.
The presentation of praeterio
Praeteritio is a figure of thought by which, according to the Oxford Dictionary of English (2005), “attention is drawn to something by professing to omit it”. The figure is also known as paralipsis, antiphrasis, occultatio and omissio. The Ad Herennium gives the following description of praeteritio: Paralipsis [praeteritio] occurs when we say that we are passing by, or do not know, or refuse to say that which precisely now we are saying, as follows: “Your boyhood, indeed, which you dedicated to intemperance of all kinds, I would discuss, if I thought this the right time. But at present I advisedly leave that aside. This too I pass by, that the tribunes have reported you as irregular in military service. […] Of these things I say nothing, but return to the issue in this trial.” (IV, 27.37)
The principle characteristic of praeteritio is that the speaker announces that he will omit something, but mentions it nonetheless.1 With praeteritio, speakers or writers both make clear that they are not going to give certain information and in doing so convey this information all the same. For this reason, this figure is sometimes called ‘false reticence’. In order to gain more insight into the possible manifestations of praeteritio, I shall try to answer the following two questions: (1) By what means can speakers or writers make it clear that they will not convey certain information?; and (2) How do they manage to convey this information all the same? A first way for speakers or writers to make it clear that they will not speak about something or say something is to explicitly announce this. In example (1) and (2) such a direct approach is chosen:
The contribution of praeteritio to confrontational strategic manoeuvres 243
(1) I will not tell you how my mother made coffee for my father every morning. (www.stanfordspokenword.com/poems/) (2) “I am not saying that the pope is ignorant”, says Yumakogullari, “but he has said such ugly things about Islam, that you cannot do otherwise but conclude that he does not know anything about our religion. Islam means peace.” (NRC Handelsblad, November 28, 2006)
That one will not say something or talk about something can also be made clear in an indirect way. This is the case if a speaker or writer provides information which amounts to the fact that one of the felicity conditions for performing an assertive speech act are not fulfilled. In doing so, the speaker provides support for the implicit standpoint that performing the speech act in question would not be justified, which in turn can be a way of indirectly making it clear that he is not performing the assertive speech act. In example (3) it is the sincerity condition (S believes that the proposition expressed in the assertive is true or correct) that is claimed to be not fulfilled and in example (4) a preparatory condition (S believes that the information contained by the proposition is in the listener’s interest (new, important, etcetera):2 (3) Bush […] warned Congress against limiting funding for the war […]: “I do not believe that someone is unpatriotic if they don’t agree with my point of view. On the other hand, I think it’s important for people to understand the consequences of not giving our troops the resources necessary to do the job.” (www.usatoday.com/news/ washington/2007-02-26–democrats-iraq) (4) You’re a smart person, so I don’t have to tell you that the Internet is making a lot of people rich, you already know that. (www.makemoneyonline-now.com/ - 28k)
In example (3), Bush makes it clear that he is not willing to commit himself to the proposition that someone is unpatriotic if they don’t agree with his point of view on limiting funding for the Iraq war by indicating that the sincerity condition – that he believes this proposition to be true – is not fulfilled. Nevertheless, his denial in combination with his follow up gives reason to believe that he thinks this is the case. In example (4), the writer is saying that it would be superfluous to inform the reader about the fact that Internet is making a lot of people rich, thereby implying that giving this information is not what he is doing, which is, of course, not true. As we have seen, it is characteristic of praeteritio that while speakers or writers announce that they will pass something over, they mention it all the same. What sorts of techniques are employed to present the information they claim they will not communicate without drawing too much attention to this inconsistency?
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I think that in order to answer this question, first a further distinction needs to be made within the ways of presenting a praeteritio that I have discussed until now. On the one hand, there are cases where the speaker denies that he is committing himself to a certain proposition; and on the other hand, there are cases where the speaker denies that he is going to tell something, mention something, or talk about something. The speaker then does not deny that he is prepared to commit himself to a proposition, but only denies that he is prepared (or able) to talk about something. The fact that he is committed to the proposition or propositions he is not prepared to express is then left implicit or is taken for granted. This difference has consequences for the way in which speakers will avoid being overtly inconsistent when they say they will not say or tell something which they communicate nonetheless. If the arguer would not make any attempt at masking the inconsistency that is inherent in a praeteritio, he would produce praeteritio’s of the very unrealistic types (5) and (6): (5) I do not say that he is ill, but he is ill [not p, but p] (6) I am not going to tell you what his illness was, which is the flu [I will not perform speech act A, which I am performing now]
Such blatant forms of inconsistency will probably not be of much use in getting the arguer’s standpoint accepted by the other party since they do not help to keep up the appearance of reasonableness. So how do arguers manage to mask these types of inconsistency? In the first type of cases, where the speaker denies commitment to a proposition, a technique that is often used is to follow up this denial with a clause introduced by but, in which the speaker puts forward an alternative assertion, which at first sight seems to be a different statement, but on closer inspection turns out to be the same thing in the context at hand. In example (2) this technique is employed: when asked for a reaction on Pope Benedict’s comments on Islam, Yumakogullari claims that the pope is not ignorant when he talks about Islam, but that he does not know anything about Islam. In the second type of case, where the speaker announces that he is not going to convey certain information to the listener, there are various techniques that can be employed to camouflage the inconsistency. One way of achieving this effect is to avoid using an all-or-nothing formulation, such as saying that one will not speak of something, but instead use a formulation that allows for more gradation such as: ‘I will not go into details’ or ‘I will not elaborate’. Since the criteria for considering something as detailed or not are to a large degree a relative and subjective matter, it is hard to accuse someone of being too detailed when he claims he is not. In example (7) this technique has been used:
The contribution of praeteritio to confrontational strategic manoeuvres 245
(7) Well, let me start by pointing out Livingston’s bad side. I will not go into detail but will give you a list. The cops are corrupt! If they don’t like the color of your skin or the clothes you wear, you will be stopped eventually for no reason. The mayor has too much power and he’s loose with it. Helping himself and his friends, paying no attention to the town. There are no family activities. Arts? There is a park right next to a highway and a sewer canal, want to play? As far as tourism and history goes who knows? I was never educated about our past here. No one speaks a word of it and tourism is a bust; who wants to come get pulled over (everyone knows about Livingston police). That’s all I have to say about this small rumor infested town. (forum.citytowninfo.com/forum/m-1197044039/ - 48k -)
A second possibility consists in using a construction like ‘I will not tell you how’. (8) is an example: (8) I will not tell you how the aircraft dipped and plunged through clouds for the good part of an hour while I sat whimpering in my seat, completely sober, wondering what heaven was like. (www.knotmag.com/?article=532 - 27k)
This way of introducing the information may be an effective means of camouflaging the fact that one is providing the information one announces not to provide due to the potential ambiguity of ‘how’ as a subordinating conjunction: it can either refer to the way in which something is done or be used to introduce a statement of fact. To take an example, a sentence like (9) I will not tell you how John lost all his money at the casino.
may be used to make two different statements, (9a) and (9b): (9a) I will not tell you in what way exactly John lost all his money at the casino. (9b) I will not tell you that John lost all his money at the casino.
If the speaker only intended to convey the information that John lost his money, (9) is a clear case of praeteritio of the self-defeating type: the information the speaker claims not to give is exactly the information that he does get across. But this may go unnoticed because of the ambiguity of the ‘how-construction’. It is even likely that the listener will favour interpretation (9a) instead of (9b) since we may take it that he will assume that the speaker is observing Grice’s cooperative principle (1975). The listener will therefore avoid ascribing an infringement of the Quality maxim to the speaker. A third way of realizing a praeteritio without being overtly inconsistent is to use a construction that can also be used in the case of a genuine omission, such as: ‘We will not talk about X today’ where X is a noun or noun phrase, and not a
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full statement. If this construction is used with a noun or noun phrase that has negative or positive connotations, however, it can be used to convey exactly the information one wants to convey under the pretence of not doing so. In this way example (10) could be a means of covertly informing the audience of the fact that there is a budget deficit: (10) We will not bring up the matter of the budget deficit here. (http://www.virtualsalt.com/rhetoric.htm)
An added advantage of this type of construction is that the information (i.e. that there is a budget deficit) is introduced as if it were already an accepted fact, something that belongs to the common ground, and thus does not merit any critical attention.3 A fourth example of how speakers or writers can make a statement or accusation while claiming that they will not make this statement without seeming inconsistent is by making use of a past conditional. They thereby make it clear that the non-fulfilment of a specific condition prevents them from making the statement. The statement is made nonetheless, as in example (11), but in this case it no longer seems to be addressed to the person in question, so that the speaker can deny having called his friend a liar: (11) If you were not my friend, I would say you are a liar.
3.
Potential effects of praeteritio
According to the Ad Herennium, an important reason for using praeteritio is to get some information or evidence across without drawing attention to the fact that one is giving this information or presenting this evidence: This figure is useful if employed in a matter which it is not pertinent to call specifically to the attention of others, because there is advantage in making only an indirect reference to it, or because the direct reference would be tedious or undignified, or cannot be made clear, or can easily be refuted. As a result, it is of greater advantage to create a suspicion by Paralipsis [praeteritio] than to insist directly on a statement that is refutable. (IV, 27.37)
Usher gives a similar analysis of the function of this figure of thought and claims that it is being used “as a medium for presenting evidence in such a way that it may be accepted by the audience in spite of its doubtful veracity or value.” (1965: 175). He gives the following description of how praeteritio might work:
The contribution of praeteritio to confrontational strategic manoeuvres 247
Occultatio [praeteritio] is thus used to present material which would, if critically examined by an alert jury, be found false or refutable. It enables a statement to be made and mentally noted by the jury in the speaker’s favour; but because he seems to regard it as unnecessary for his argument or irrelevant, they do not examine it too closely. By this means, weak arguments and false evidence could be introduced with confidence under the pretence of omitting them. (176)
Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s description of the use of praeteritio also emphasises the usefulness of this figure for speakers who are afraid to use a certain argument: The specific remedy open to a speaker who is afraid to use a particular argument is to hint at it. Too explicit use of some arguments is contrary to good taste, dangerous or even prohibited. There are arguments that can be referred to only by insinuation or allusion, or by a threat to use them. (Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca 1969: 487)
Praeteritio is seen by Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca as a type of “semi-renunciation” or “pretended sacrifice” of an argument (1969: 487). According to them, “the sacrifice of the argument satisfies the proprieties, while it suggests also that the other arguments are sufficiently strong to make this one unnecessary.” (1969: 487) All the authors discussed until now, believe that praeteritio is used to present information and in particular arguments in such a way that they do not receive too much attention, but reach the audience nonetheless. Other authors see praeteritio first and foremost as a way of emphasising the allegedly omitted material. Lanham, for instance, defines praeteritio as a way of “emphasizing something by pointedly passing it over” (1991: 104). And Dupriez makes a distinction between “semi-preteritions which hardly emphasize an utterance” and “true preterition” which “is a form of pseudo-simulation, concealing the better to display” (1991: 354). I think that praeteritio may be a combination of emphasizing and hiding. Instead of just keeping silent about something or refraining from performing a specific speech act, speakers or writers who use praeteritio explicitly deny that they are committed to a certain proposition or explicitly announce that they will not speak of something. By denying their commitment to a proposition, the proposition in question becomes more prominent in the consciousness of the audience. As Clark (1975) observes with respect to Richard Nixon’s famous “I am not a crook” – statement, denials presuppose that the audience does or could believe what is being denied.4 And if a speaker announces not to bring up a certain subject, he thereby also draws attention to the speech act he claims not to perform, since this is normally only done in a situation where your audience expects you to perform a certain speech act, or where you yourself would have wanted to do this,
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but you nonetheless refrain from performing it. For this reason, denying that you are going to perform the speech act focuses the audience’s attention on the fact that you could have done this or would have liked to do this. So denying a commitment or denying that one is going to perform a certain speech act draws the attention of the audience to the information speakers or writers claim not to provide or the speech act they announce not to perform. If this refusal to commit oneself or to talk about something is a case of praeteritio and not just of reticence, the information is given nonetheless, but it is generally presented in such a way that the contradiction between what speakers claim to be doing and what they do in reality is camouflaged. As a result, it may become more difficult to establish what the commitments of speakers exactly are, or to hold them accountable for what they have said. It is in this way that praeteritio, when combined with specific presentation techniques, can be seen both as a form of emphasizing and of hiding.
4.
Praeteritio and strategic manoeuvring
The question I would now like to address is what role praeteritio can play in an arguer’s strategic manoeuvrings. Until now, as we have seen, praeteritio has mainly been described as a useful technique for presenting arguments in such a way that they are less likely to raise particular criticisms. Praeteritio has thus been considered a device that can be used in the argumentation stage. In my opinion, praeteritio may be functional in each of the stages of an argumentative discussion. To make this clear, I shall give some examples of how praeteritio can be used in the different stages of the ideal model of critical discussion. I shall leave out the confrontation stage for now, however, and come back to that stage at the end of this paper when I shall focus on how praeteritio may contribute to arguers’ confrontational manoeuvrings. So let us start with the opening stage, where the dialectical aim is to establish an unambiguous point of departure for the discussion by coming to an agreement on the starting points. The rhetorical aim of each of the parties at this stage is to establish those starting points that serve their own interest best. Ways of achieving this are for instance to propose a starting point to the other party or to attribute a starting point to this party.5 In example (12) the latter is done by stating that something has already been accepted as a starting point:
The contribution of praeteritio to confrontational strategic manoeuvres 249
Indicating that the other party has already accepted something as a starting point by means of a praeteritio: (12) To me the baby boomer way to live life is to make the most of the options we now have, especially the option to work from home. I do not have to remind you that we have always done that. Once we see an opportunity and it looks good we go for it. This is just another one of those things we can choose to do. And just like you I would rather do it the easy way than the hard way. […] Come join the baby boomer boom. Work from home. (ezinearticles. com/?Baby-Boomers---Work-From-Home-Is-An-Option&id=841077 - 40k -)
The author is trying to convince his fellow baby-boomers to work from home, by presenting this course of action as a way of making the most of the options baby boomers have. To ensure that this argument will be convincing to the audience, the arguer makes it seem as if all baby boomers already agree that making the most of the options they have is what is typical of them. The arguer uses an indirect form of praeteritio by referring to the superfluity of mentioning this well-established fact to the audience. The praeteritio thus helps in creating the impression that this fact is an agreed-upon starting point, meanwhile allowing the arguer to put forward this starting point as one of the premises of his argument all the same. In the argumentation stage, the dialectical aim is to advance and criticize argumentation. The rhetorical aim of this stage is “to make the strongest case and to launch the most effective attack” (van Eemeren and Houtlosser 2002: 139). In order to do so, arguers will, for instance, attempt to present their arguments in such a way that they seem as strong as possible. In example (13) one of the arguments for the standpoint “Americans should have more vacation time” is presented by means of a praeteritio. Although literally speaking, the arguer does indeed not mention the amount of vacation time Europeans receive, from the context it is clear that this amount must be a lot more than the three weeks Chinese workers get, so that the arguer manages to get his message across all the same. By presenting the argument in this way instead of spelling it out, the arguer can give the impression that he could come up with a much stronger argument than the fact that Chinese workers have more vacation than Americans, but does not need to do so, since without this additional argument the argumentation is strong enough already.
Presenting an argument by means of a praeteritio: (13) Oh, to continue my constant rant with work in general....did you know that Chinese workers get an average of 3 weeks vacation a year??? I read that in an article last week; I couldn’t believe it. They don’t have freedom of speech, but they get more vacation than we do? […] I just think we deserve more.
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The “best” country in the world can’t give its employees as much vacation as China? I won’t even mention the amount of vacation time Europeans receive. (tjparker.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!7BF842B4D45B5A92!1538.entry - 44k -)
The dialectical aim of the concluding stage is to establish the result of the discussion: can the protagonist maintain his standpoint or can the antagonist maintain his position of doubt? The rhetorical objective of each party is to “claim victory” (van Eemeren and Houtlosser 2002: 139). In example (14) the antagonist ends the discussion by maintaining his doubt, but does so in the form of a praeteritio, possibly to make it easier to close off the discussion in his own favour without further ado since his ‘promise’ not to make the persistent disagreement public gives the impression that he is being considerate (or at least it could, if the ‘oops’ were not added).
Maintaining doubt by means of a praeteritio: (14) Thank you very much [t)], and I promise not to mention that I disagree (oops). (www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=237&page=13 - 117k -)
I hope these examples will suffice to make it clear that the stylistic device of praeteritio can contribute to arguers’ strategic manoeuvrings not just in the argumentation stage of an argumentative discussion, but in other stages as well. In the last part of my paper, I shall focus on the use of praeteritio as a means of confrontational manoeuvring.
5.
Confrontational manoeuvring with praeteritio
In the confrontation stage, the dialectical aim is to externalize the difference of opinion so that it becomes possible to make an attempt at resolving it. The rhetorical objective of the participants will be to define the difference of opinion in the way that is the most beneficial from their own perspective (van Eemeren and Houtlosser 2002: 138). If arguers foresee that they will not be able to get the difference of opinion on the table in a way that suits them, they may even try to avoid discussing a certain standpoint or attempt to prevent the other party from advancing a particular standpoint or voicing a certain criticism. In example (15) Chamisa’s reaction to the accusation that his faction is on a verbal warpath with the Mutambara camp can be seen as a way of avoiding the discussion of a standpoint by excluding it from the discussion:
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(15) “I do not want to waste my time commenting on such baseless accusations,” Chamisa said. “I am tired of accusations from people who want to have relevance by lying.” (allafrica.com/stories/200707270571.html)
Chamisa makes it clear that he does not consider the accusation worth discussing, by saying that he does not want to waste his time commenting on such accusations. This is a clear praeteritio, since Chamisa does of course comment on the accusation nonetheless, by characterising it as baseless and by disqualifying those who made it by accusing them of lying only to get the attention. An example of an arguer who attempts to prevent his opponents from disagreeing with his position can be found in example (16), a fragment of a speech by the High Commissioner of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA): (16) We have a shortfall between what the General Assembly voted in our budget and what we have received so far by way of commitments and pledges of almost seventy million dollars. If this money does not arrive, somehow we will have to reduce activities in our budget by 70 million dollars, and you can imagine what kind of pain that will be. I do not want to scare anybody, and I am sure I won’t need to scare anybody because I am confident that the international community will live up to its responsibility and cover this deficit. (www.un.org/unrwa/news/fieldevents/almezan-may01.html - 38k -)
The High Commissioner defends the standpoint that the international community should cover the deficit of 70 million dollars in the budget of the UNRWA. By putting pressure on his opponents he tries to prevent them from casting doubt on this standpoint. By making use of the praeteritio, the High Commissioner protects himself in advance against criticism on his attempt at coercing the international community into covering the budget deficit. This example shows clearly the paradoxical effect of praeteritio: on the one hand, the fact that the arguer is threatening his opponent is made manifest by the arguer’s explicit denial of any intent to scare anybody. On the other hand, because of this denial, it becomes more difficult if not impossible to accuse the arguer of putting pressure on his opponent. Instead of attempting to prevent the discussion from getting off the ground, arguers can also try to arrive at a definition of the difference of opinion that enhances their chances of winning the discussion. Arguers may for instance present their standpoint in such a way that it becomes more difficult to attack, as in example (17): (17) One of the secret alerts that was leaked was little more than an abstract of a paper published recently by Stanford University researchers. Given CERT’s non-profit, public-good mission, it’s hard to see why CERT did not release
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this report to the public, given that the information on which it was based had already been released (and even discussed on Slashdot). It’s worth noting that, having set up a system where it is paid to deliver security secrets to the ISA membership, CERT has an economic incentive to manufacture secrets or to increase their perceived value to ISA members by withholding the secrets from the public for longer than necessary. I have no reason to accuse CERT of doing this systematically, but its handling of the Stanford paper does raise questions. (www.freedom-to-tinker.com)
The writer first points out that CERT has an economic incentive to manufacture secrets or withhold secrets from the public longer than necessary. Next he denies having reason for accusing CERT of systematically manufacturing secrets. In combination with what he has just suggested about it being in CERT’s interest to do exactly that, one can say that he does insinuate this standpoint. The praeteritio in this case seems to have the function of an evasion of the burden of proof: the arguer immunizes his standpoint against criticism. I have the impression that it is in particular the type of praeteritio where the arguer denies his commitment to a certain proposition, but meanwhile puts forward an alternative standpoint that amounts to more or less the same thing, that is used to present a standpoint in such a way that it becomes more difficult to attack. Since the arguer has denied to be committed to the proposition in question, it seems no longer relevant to criticize this proposition even though it is clearly insinuated. A more extreme case is example (18), where the arguer introduces his standpoint that it would take God to provide a quality public education in America by saying that it would be too easy to say this, but follows up this statement with the claim that it is the truth: (18) I suppose it would be too easy to say that it would take God to provide a quality public education in America, but it is the truth. As civilizations turn away from God, crime rates rise. As musicians turn away from God, their music becomes increasingly discordant and painful to listen to. In the same way, when you take God out of a school’s education system, it slowly loses all its quality. (invisiblob.blogspot.com/2008/04/what-will it-take-to-provide-quality.html - 72k -)
So what is the arguer now committed to? That this claim would be an oversimplification? Or that it is a tenable claim? Another way for parties of attempting to escape responsibility for their confrontational moves is to criticize the other party’s standpoint in such a way that they cannot be called to account for any unreasonableness of their criticisms, as
The contribution of praeteritio to confrontational strategic manoeuvres 253
‘Joe M.’ does in example (19) in reaction to ‘Dan’s negative evaluation of “the Big Bite” sketch show: (19) Dan: Saw “the Big Bite” sketch show on TV last night. How lame. How Unoriginal. Joe M.: uh, Dan, it would be too easy to say “You do better” but a few people around here make their living from helping comedians get their stuff to air. I’d rather watch and support a local comedy for local people than any imported reality series. (phorums.com.au/archive/index.php/t-33805.html - 12k)
Joe M. is in fact committing an ad hominem fallacy of the tu quoque type when he reacts critically to Dan’s standpoint by remarking ‘You do better’, but because he introduces this reaction by means of a praeteritio, by claiming that reacting is such a way would be too easy, meanwhile getting his comment across nonetheless, it becomes more difficult for the opponent to hold him accountable for this fallacy.
6.
Conclusion
As we have seen, using praeteritio when putting forward one of the relevant discussion moves enables speakers or writers to focus the attention on the fact that they are not going to perform a certain speech act and meanwhile smuggle in the information they allegedly are going to omit. Making use of a praeteritio does not necessarily result in a fallacy. There is nothing fallacious about example (13) for instance, and if example (19) were used to introduce a form of criticism that is a bit weak or maybe an oversimplification but not a fallacious move, it would not be fallacious either. Although making use of a praeteritio does thus not by definition result in a fallacy, there is a real possibility that strategic manoeuvres involving praeteritio’s may derail. Praeteritio is a technique which brings about a distinction between what is said ‘on record’ and what is said ‘off the record’ and can therefore, generally speaking, be a means of avoiding the responsibilities that one would have taken upon oneself if one would not have used the praeteritio. For the confrontation stage this means that the device of praeteritio can typically result in evasions of the burden of proof, as for instance in examples (17) and (18), where the arguer immunizes the standpoint against criticism by claiming that the position that he is in fact supporting is not the one he wants to defend. Example (15), where the arguer supposedly refuses to discuss a standpoint, but manages by way of the praeteritio to make his position clear nonetheless, in effect also amount to an evasion of the burden of proof, since the arguer can now accuse his opponents of lying without being asked to substantiate this claim. And finally,
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the examples (16) and (19) show that in the confrontation stage praeteritio can be a means of committing any type of fallacy associated with the freedom rule of a critical discussion and getting away with it. By denying that one wants to put pressure on the opponent or attack the opponent’s person, one can keep up the appearance of innocence and reasonableness, while steering the discussion in the direction one desires.
References Clark, H. H. (1975). Bridging. Proceedings of the 1975 workshop on theoretical issues in natural language processing: Theoretical Issues In Natural Language Processing. Morristown, NJ: Association for Computational Linguistics. Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary. (1988). London: Collins. Ducrot, O. (1984). Le dire et le dit. Paris: Minuit. Dupriez, B. (1991). A dictionary of literary devices. (A. W. Halsall, Ed. & Trans.). New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2002). Strategic maneuvering: Maintaining a delicate balance. In: F. H. van Eemeren & P. Houtlosser (Eds.), Dialectic and rhetoric: The warp and woof of argumentation analysis (pp. 119–130). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic. Eemeren, F. H. van, Houtlosser, P., & Snoeck Henkemans, A. F. (2007). Argumentative indicators in discourse. A pragma-dialectical study. Dordrecht: Springer. Grice, P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J. L. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and semantics III: Speech acts (pp. 41–58). London: Academic Press. Houtlosser, P. (1985). Standpunten in een kritische discussie. Een pragma-dialectisch perspectief op de identificatie en reconstructie van standpunten. [Standpoints in a Critical Discussion. A Pragma-Dialectical Perspective on the Identification and Reconstruction of Standpoints]. Amsterdam: Ifott. Lanham, R. A. (1991). A handlist of rhetorical terms (2nd ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. Perelman, Ch. & Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1969). The New Rhetoric. A treatise on argumentation (Translation of La nouvelle rhétorique. Traité de l’argumentation. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1958). Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Rhetorica ad Herennium. (1954). (H. Caplan, Trans.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Searle, J. R., & Vanderveken, D. (1985). Foundations of illocutionary logic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schmid, H.-J. (2001). Presupposition can be a bluff: How abstract nouns can be used as presupposition triggers. Journal of Pragmatics, 33, 1529–1552. Snoeck Henkemans, A. F. (2005). What’s in a name? The use of the stylistic device metonymy as a strategic manoeuvre in the confrontation and argumentation stages of a discussion. In D. Hitchcock (Ed.), Proceedings Conference The Uses of Argument (pp. 433–441). Hamilton: Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation.
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Snoeck Henkemans, A. F. (2007). Manoeuvering strategically with rhetorical questions In F. H. van Eemeren, A. J. Blair, Ch. Willard & B. Garssen (Eds.), Proceedings of the Sixth Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation (pp. 1309–1313). Amsterdam: Sic Sat. Usher, S. (1965). Occultatio in Cicero’s speeches. The American Journal of Philology, 85, 175–192.
Notes 1. Reticentia (or aposiopesis or praecisio) is the term used for a genuine omission, that is, where a speaker fulfils his or her stated intention to omit (Usher 1969: 177). According to Usher, reticentia “can create rhetorical effect by suggesting the availability of a great mass of relevant evidence upon which the speaker does not intend to draw” Usher 1969: 177). 2. Two other preparatory conditions the fulfilment of which can be denied and thus result in a praeteritio are: ‘S believes that he can present evidence for the expressed proposition’ (see example (17) in this paper), and ‘S believes he is entitled or in a position to express his commitment to the correctness of the proposition (i.e. there are no moral, legal or practical reasons or social conventions that prevent S from doing so)’ (see example (19) in this paper). My analysis of the felicity conditions for assertives is based on Peter Houtlosser’s (1995, 103–106) analysis of the basic type of assertives, which in turn is based on the felicity conditions formulated by Searle and Vanderveken (1985). 3. Schmid (2001) discusses comparable constructions with an abstract noun such as ‘The fact is that’ or ‘The trouble is that’ by means of which speakers or writers can manipulate the hearer or reader. Presuppositions are often bluffs, according to Schmid, by means of which speakers “trick their hearers into the unfounded belief that certain pieces of information do not require particular attention or even reflection, since they represent mutually shared, familiar ground anyway” (1548). A similar effect is already achieved by the use of the definite article when speaking of “the budget deficit”. 4. A similar analysis is given by Ducrot (1984: 216–217), who claims that sentences containing a (polemic) negation entail a dialogue with a (silent) second “voice” that maintains the opposite viewpoint. 5. In van Eemeren, Houtlosser & Snoeck Henkemans (2007: 90–92) a dialectical profile for the opening stage is presented in which it is specified which moves a participant in a critical discussion can make as part of proposing a starting point and responding to such a proposal. The types of indicators of the various moves in this stage of a discussion are also specified and discussed.
Manoeuvring with voices The polyphonic framing of arguments in an institutional advertisement Andrea Rocci
1.
Introduction
In their work on strategic manoeuvring Frans van Eemeren and Peter Houtlosser (2006) provided a framework for investigating rhetorical strategies from the perspective of a normative dialectical model of argumentation. The proposal broadens the scope and empirical reach of the pragma-dialectical model as it allows to tackle the discourse strategies of arguers within actual argumentative practices. Rhetorical strategies are seen as motivated by the need of maintaining a “delicate balance” between dialectical commitments to a reasonable discussion and persuasive goals within the constraints imposed by the socially situated activity type and by the interpersonal relationship between the discussants. At the same time, the proposal poses novel questions for the study of rhetorical strategies as it lays out the fundamental coordinates of a research program encompassing a largely uncharted territory. The present paper seeks to contribute to this program by surveying and partially charting an area of this vast territory. Van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2006: 384) look at strategic manoeuvring in terms of strategies and forms. Argumentative strategies “are methodical designs of moves for influencing the results of a particular dialectical stage, and the discussion as a whole, to a certain party’s advantage that manifest themselves at a certain stage of the discourse in a systematic, coordinated and simultaneous exploitation of the available opportunities”. Thus there are, for instance, specific confrontation strategies aimed at defining the difference of opinion at issue in a way which is advantageous for the concerned parties. Forms are classes of choices that can be relevant in building a strategy. Three basic forms are examined: the selection of topics, the adaptation to audience demand, and the use of “presentational” (or “stylistic”) devices. While the three forms can be distinguished analytically, they
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are, typically found together as components of a rhetorical argumentative strategy. This paper describes a form of strategic manoeuvring which I call polyphonic framing, which can be ranged among the presentational devices. The notion of presentational device is intuitively clear, but, at the same time, it is very broad. It coincides with the whole domain of style, or wording – what the classical rhetorical tradition called lexis or elocutio. Style is intimately connected with the notion of choice and, in principle, any kind of linguistic variation can become the object of a deliberate choice aiming at particular communicative effect (cf. Halliday 1977, Rigotti 1992). Even if we leave out the subtler and more discreet manifestations of deliberate stylistic choice – which sometimes go under the umbrella term of register – the inventory of figures of speech that the rhetorical tradition consigned us forms in itself a vast and heterogeneous landscape. Presentational devices differ markedly both at the level of their realization and at the level of their effects. The different presentational devices can relate more or less directly to the goal of persuading the audience. Interestingly, these differences are relevant also in view of the task of evaluating the dialectical soundness of strategies employing each device: some presentational devices interface more directly with a model of critical discussion, while others need to be contextualised within broader moves in order to be evaluated. Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca (1958) propose that the minimal defining features of a figure are the presence of a recognizable form, which can be “syntactic, semantic or pragmatic” and a usage that deviates from the expected mode of expression, thus attracting the attention of the addressee. Here I will refer to the “recognizable form” as the realization strategy of the figure. There are figures for which the realization strategy is clearly formal in nature. The classic tradition calls schemes the figures of arrangement, based on a recurrence of lexical, morphological, syntactic or semantic units which leads to the perception of non random patterns in the textual chain. Epizeuxis (cf. Pilkington 2000), that is the immediate repetition of a word or phrase, can serve as an example: (1) My childhood days are gone, gone
The central tropes such as metaphor (2), metonymy (3) or litotes (4) have a completely different realization strategy, which involves inferring a semantic shift at the level of the propositional content of the utterance. (2) A storm broke over the financial markets (3) The buses are again on strike (4) The writer is not a genius. His works are rubbish, and no one is going to read them.
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A third type of figures is characterised by a realization strategy which consists in the performance of certain speech acts, or sequences of speech acts in certain contexts. For instance, the concessio is realized by presenting a proposition as the concession of a premise supporting the antagonist’s standpoint and then using it to prove one’s own standpoint, while the comprobatio consists in commending a virtue in the direct antagonist, in the audience, or in a third party. Similarly, in the prolepsis the protagonist presents an objection to his/her own standpoint and then answers to this objection. It is quite natural to expect that figures so different as to concern their realization basis should also differ markedly with respect to their potential contribution to persuasive effects and in the way they relate to the dialectically relevant aspects of a critical discussion. Suffice it to compare the performance of a certain kind of illocutionary act, which identifies the comprobatio and the repeated utterance of a word of phrase, which identifies epizeuxis. For instance, while I can directly assess the relevance and soundness of an illocutionary act with respect to the model of critical discussion, I cannot directly assess a repetition. First I have to determine what this repetition does, in semantic and pragmatic terms and/or in psychological terms and then see whether this effect represents an hindrance or not in a process of reasonable resolution of a difference of opinion. Having speech acts as its basic units a normative pragmatic model such as Pragma-Dialectics can deal rather directly with speech-act level figures like concessio, comprobatio and prolepsis. More precisely, we can observe that the realization strategy of these figures is already defined in terms of roles within an argumentative discussion: to have a prolepsis I need a protagonist raising objections to his/her own standpoint and then answer those objections. If there is no ongoing argumentative discussion the possibility of having a prolepsis, a concessio or a comprobatio is ruled out by definition. By contrast, I can have as many metaphors, metonymies, synecdoches, litotes, understatements or hyperboles as I want while narrating a story, telling a joke, describing a landscape, expressing my feelings, or explaining the functioning of a dishwasher. This is because the core tropes are defined at the level of propositional content semantics rather than at the level of (sequences of) speech acts within a dialogue game. In the present paper I discuss a presentational device which I call polyphonic framing, which is not in itself included in the traditional repertoire of figures of speech. It is instead identified drawing from the concepts of framing and polyphony, both of which have a recent but rich tradition in discourse studies. Polyphonic framing shares with the speech-act level figures examined above the fact that it is defined at a pragmatic level. It arises from inferential, non-compositional, processes of meaning construction based on linguistic and contextual cues that result in the staging of utterances or extended discourse segments as originating
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from subjects other than the speaker so as to give textual presence to multiple voices corresponding to the participants in the argumentative discussion or, more generally, to parties that have a stake (stakeholders) in the broader activity type within which the argumentative discussion originates. The use of the term framing refers here to this mapping of roles in the argumentative discussion and in the activity type, which is projected by the discourse, while the term polyphony relates to the staging of multiple voices in the discourse. In the following pages I will first briefly discuss the two notions of framing and polyphony and their relevance for argumentation Then I will investigate the process of polyphonic framing through the analysis of two print advertisements where it is exploited to manoeuvre strategically at the level of the confrontation stage and of the argumentation stage. The second example, in particular, is examined in detail as it exploits the interpretive inferences of the audience to create an intricate polyphony, suggesting, as a result, multiple standpoints and multiple antagonists in the confrontation stage, and, correspondingly, multiple lines of argument in the argumentation stage. In examining these two examples, I will also pay attention to the way in which polyphonic framing reflects and exploits the structure of the activity type within which the argumentative discussion takes place (in our case commercial and institutional advertisement of a major bank and of a multinational energy company). An analysis of activity types (Rigotti & Rocci 2006b) in terms of the mapping of an interaction scheme onto the social reality of a particular interaction field will provide a bridge between the analysis of the polyphonic framing and an understanding of these advertisements in terms of the stakeholder model of corporate communication.
2.
Frames
In the 1970s similar notions of frame were developed roughly at the same time in anthropology, artificial intelligence, linguistics and sociology. The different notions have evolved somewhat independently, but share a certain number of similarities (see Tannen 1979 for a review of early literature on frames across the disciplines). Frame is the most frequently used term, alongside terms such as schema, scene or script. Erving Goffmann’s vast sociological work on frame analysis represents perhaps the best known variant of the notion. He provides the following definition of a frame: I assume that definitions of a situation are built up in accordance with principles of organization which govern events – at least social ones – and our subjective
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involvement in them; frame is the word I use to refer to such of these basic elements as I am able to identify. That is my definition of frame. My phrase “frame analysis” is a slogan to refer to the examination in these terms of the organization (Goffman 1974: 10–11) of experience.”
A frame, in Goffman’s sense, is thus a schema used as a sort of model to make sense of a piece of experienced reality. Goffman is interested in the human experience of events to which people attend, and of activities in which they engage, with a special emphasis on interaction and talk. Goffman’s concept of a frame, in itself very general (a frame can concern just any kind of natural or social event that can be experienced) is specified through a complex closely knit network of related concepts. Goffman distinguishes, for instance, the primary frameworks of experience from the transposition of these frameworks into derived frames according to certain keys. For instance a frame such as a fight can be transposed according to different keys such as a mock fight in children’s play, or a as a staged fight in a theatrical performance. Both kinds of frame involve roles that participants can fulfill and restrictions on the kind of participants that can fulfill a certain role. With respect to interaction Goffman’s frames provide, as Tannen and Wallat (1987: 206) put it, “a definition of what is going on in interaction, without which no utterance (or movement or gesture) could be interpreted”. In this respect Goffman’s frames refer to the same aspect of interaction that more specific and narrowly focused notions such as activity type (Levinson 1992, Rigotti & Rocci 2006b) or dialogue game (Mann 1988, Rocci 2005b) try to capture. In order to describe polyphonic framing, I will need to return shortly on these constructs. Before doing that, however, I want introduce another notion of frame I will draw from in my account of framing as a form of strategic maneuvering. In linguistics the notion of frame is tied in particular to Charles J. Fillmore and his work on frame semantics since the early 1970s (cf. Fillmore 2003 for a collection of the early articles on frames). In this semantic tradition the notion of frame emerges as a development of the concept of the argument frame of a predicate and of the roles that characterize each argument place. Each predicate defines a set of argument slots (or semantic roles) corresponding to the participants in an event or action, or the elements of a state of affairs. Each role slot is defined by a set of features that the actual participant must fulfill (Rigotti & Rocci 2001, Rocci 2005a). For instance, the verb to buy manifests a four-place predicate buy (x1, x2, x3, x4): (5) [x1: John] bought [x2: a house] [x3: from Elizabeth] [x4: for € 500,000]
Each of these argument slots corresponds to a role in a ‘commercial transaction’: x1 is the buyer, x2 the goods, x3 the seller, and x4 the price. These roles, however,
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are also evoked by other words referring to the commercial event (spend, sell, pay, charge) including the nouns denoting the roles themselves (goods, price, etc.). Each of them evokes the whole scene of the ‘commercial transaction’, while putting in focus different aspects of it: (6) [x1: Elizabeth] sold1 [x2: a house] [x3: to John] [x4: for € 500,000] (7) [x1: The house] sold2 [x2: for € 500,000] (8) [x1: John] paid [x2: € 500,000] [x3: to Elizabeth] [x4: for the house] (9) [x1: Elizabeth] charged [x2: John] [x3: € 500,000] [x4: for the house] (10) [x1: € 500,000] is the price [x2: of the house] (11) [x1: The house] costs [x2: € 500,000]
In Fillmore the term frame is used to refer to a set of lexicalized predicates whose members “index portions or aspects of some conceptual or actional whole” (Fillmore: 2003: 282). The meaning of each predicate in the frame cannot be understood if not with respect to the whole scene of the commercial transaction. More precisely, frame elements evoke parts of a culturally shared conceptual scheme which allow us understand the scene in terms of roles and relations between roles. The choice of one predicate or the other activates, or highlights, certain elements of the schema leaving other elements unexpressed, and present the whole scene from a particular perspective. For instance (6) takes the perspective of Elizabeth, the seller, while (5) takes the perspective of John, the buyer. Here we have at least two levels of choice that are potentially relevant for strategic maneuvering: First, a discussant can decide to present a given situation according to different conceptual schemes, by selecting the appropriate frame. More than one scheme can apply truthfully to a given situation, and the possible schemes can have very different implications for the rhetorical objectives of the discussant. A striking example of alternative framing is offered by Aristotle in Rhetoric (III, 2, 1405b) when he observes that the Orestes can be rightly called both mother-slayer and father’s avenger. The two epithets select two alternative framings of the very same action perpetrated by Orestes. Through a consistent choice of lexical items a given framing of a certain scene can be maintained throughout a discourse. Second, once a frame has been chosen, the choice of specific lexical items within the frame can serve to selectively activate certain components of the schema and to select a viewpoint on the scene. For instance, a news story may well state that a store owner reacted to an armed robbery this morning and then that two robbers died in the shootout rather than stating that a man shot two people dead this morning. While both statements may be materially true of what hap-
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pened, the choice in the framing of the event is of no negligible import both from a rhetorical and from an argumentative point of view. The choice operates at two levels: first through the selection of the overall frame reaction to robbery – as opposed to a simple event of killing –, and, second, through the choice of syntactic constructions that keep the agency of the store owner in killing the robbers relatively out of focus. Metaphors are a powerful resource for framing. Consider again the following example: (12) A storm broke over the financial markets.
This metaphor might be used – and it actually was – by the chairman of a major bank, badly hit by losses in the sub-prime mortgages market, to describe the financial crisis to an audience of shareholders of the bank. The processing of the metaphor involves a mapping between a source domain (meteorology) to a target domain (finance). A new predicate is created by mapping onto the financial domain the meteorological predicate breaking of a storm over (x1), which is, in turn, realized through an idiomatic phrase lexicalizing the inceptive phase of the meteorological process. If the objective of the speech was to minimize any active role and responsibility of the bank in the crisis, the choice of framing is particularly apt, as the predicate presents just one argument slot x1 corresponding to the passive role of “target location” – which is then filled by a phrase denoting the whole domain (the financial markets). The predicate in question is but one component of the frame indexing the meteorological scene ‘storm’. Interestingly, the metaphorical use of this predicate also invites the audience to bring over the whole frame of the storm as an analogical model to understand the target domain, constructing a whole new frame. The use of continued metaphor and various kinds of consistent lexical and syntactic choices can sustain and reinforce the use of the metaphorical frame as an analogical model to make sense of the target domain. The framing devices described above seem apt to achieve a kind of effect on which Van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2002) insist particularly in their description of strategic manoeuvring. Citing Perelman and Olbrecths-Tyteca (1958: 154–160), they emphasize a double choice on the part of the arguer: a choice of referential elements to be used, and a choice of techniques for the presentation of these elements. In the same section of their book – devoted to the basis of argumentation – Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca speak of the choice of the referential elements to which is given presence in the discourse as opposed to those whose presence is suppressed. In Pragma-Dialectics, the purely referential aspect of choice is connected with the topical potential, while the use of “ways of presenting things that make things present to the mind” (van Eemeren and Houtlosser 2002: 140) and
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the selection of techniques of presentation to presentational devices. Framing processes have two levels of choice – (1) choice of a frame to make sense of a scene, and (2) choice of activation/ perspective within the frame chosen – and seem to straddle the border between purely referential selection and presentation.
3.
Manoeuvring with pragmatic frames
The cases of framing considered up to this point, both literal and metaphorical, concern the propositional content of the utterance. Their power of giving presence or shadowing elements of a scene could be exploited, for instance, in the opening stage, to shape the material starting point of the argumentative discussion. Framing can be applied also at the pragmatic level of utterances. Pragmatic frames are not different in kind from semantic ones, much like performative verbs are not really different from other lexical predicates in most respects, including the fact they have an argument frame defining a series of roles. Irrespectively of their linguistic manifestation, speech acts like asking a question, advancing a standpoint, or adjourning the meeting project in every case pragmatic roles for the speaker and addressee, as well as for other components of the communication context. Congruity Theory (Rigotti & Rocci 2001, Rigotti 2005, Rocci 2005a, 2005b) uses the construct of pragmatic predicates to capture the pragmatic level of discourse and dialogue, and, in particular, the areas covered by Searlean speech-act theory and by theories addressing those speech-act level discourse relations sometimes called rhetorical relations (Mann & Thompson 1987) or rhetorical predicates (Grimes 1975). Pragmatic predicates can be manifested, more or less explicitly, by lexical, grammatical or intonational cues. Often they are not manifested at all and are recovered inferentially by the addressee. Let us consider the pragmatic predicate counterproposal, which defines the pragmatic function of the utterance in (13, B3): (13) A: (1) Let us go to the movies tonight! B: (1) I’m sorry. (2) I have an exam tomorrow. (3) How about Wednesday night instead?
An utterance having the function of counterproposal projects an extended argument frame assigning roles to the speaker, the hearer as well as to previous and forthcoming utterances in the dialogue: Counterproposal (x1, x2, x3, x4, x5, x6): x1 = speaker x2 = hearer x3 = a proposal made by x2 to x1
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x4 = a refusal of the proposal x3 by x1 to x2 x5 = the propositional content of the utterance (i.e. the action making up the content of the counterproposal) x6 = the projected acceptance or refusal of x5 by x2
In other words, much like the price of an item cannot be understood unless it is positioned with respect to the whole scene of the commercial transaction, the speech act of the counterproposal can be understood only as part of a broader pragmatic frame, corresponding to a broader dialogue game of negotiation. The counterproposal activates certain elements of the negotiation frame and puts them in the perspective of the speech act being performed. In fact, as shown in (Rocci 2005b), the dialogue game itself can be conceived as a sort of very abstract predicate defining “what the participant are doing” and assigning argument slots defining the roles of the participants and the kind of allowable contents (See also Mann 1988 on dialogue game roles). Different strata of pragmatic frames can be envisaged. In the perspective of Pragma-Dialectics, the critical discussion itself, which is an ideal dialogue game, can be conceived as a frame, projecting pragmatic roles such as protagonist, antagonist, standpoint, etc. The different allowable speech acts, such as advancing a standpoint (see, in particular, the analysis of this speech act in Houtlosser 2002), can be seen as different selections and perspectivizations of elements within the frame. At another level, culturally shared and more or less institutionalized, activity types (such as the criminal trial process of a given legislation) define pragmatic roles (like defendant, defense attorney, prosecutor, judge, juror) that are, at the same time, social and institutional roles (Hulstijn 2003) tied by a network commitments and obligations to an institutionalized field of interaction (Rigotti & Rocci 2006b). Given the somewhat abstract nature of pragmatic frames it is legitimate to ask how framing can work as a presentational device at this level. In fact, in many cases pragmatic framing is realized through the same resources that are used for framing at the propositional level. The simplest case is represented by the strategic choice of the lexicalizations of frame elements. The clearest examples here are those where the maneuvering goes astray: someone committing an ad baculum fallacy would likely conceal his/her threats as warnings or advice, diplomats engaging in a tough negotiation which is experiencing a setback might prefer to frame the failed negotiation as a frank exchange of views when dealing with the wider interaction field of the media system, professors participating in a faculty meeting might insist on framing as finding the best solution for the faculty what is, to a large extent, simple bargaining for resources or influence.
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Vivid and rather extreme examples of maneuvering with pragmatic frames are provided in Ilie’s (2005) analysis of totalitarian discourse in communist Romania. Ilie (2005: 198–200) observed, for instance, that in Ceausescu’s speeches the predicates a discuta ‘to discuss’ and a dezbate ‘to debate’ are routinely misapplied to communicative events best framed as monological issuing of directives and instructions to passive audiences. In a situation where the monolithic agreement of the audience is presupposed the role of the antagonist in the discussion is left hanging. There are, however, expressive resources that are specific to pragmatic framing. The wide gamut of polyphony phenomena is a prime example of these resources. As we will see in the following sections, polyphony can be a particularly important resource when argumentative discourse seeks to address simultaneously multiple confrontations that occur between roles in the interaction field where the interaction is situated.
4.
Dialogism and polyphony in arguments
Polyphony – and a host of related terms like dialogism, heteroglossia, voicing, voice merging, layering of voices, diaphonie, hétérogénéité énonciative, etc. – is used to describe a wide range of phenomena according to a variety of theoretical perspectives across disciplines such as literature (Bakhtin 1984), linguistics (Ducrot 1984, Nølke, Fløttum & Norén 2004) and discourse analysis (Roulet et al. 2001, Tannen 2007). It is obviously impossible here to account for this conceptual constellation with any pretence of completeness. I will instead move from the Bakhtinian concepts of dialogism and polyphony to apply them to argumentative discussions and strategic manoeuvring. Drawing on certain Bakhtinian uses of the terms, I will use dialogism to refer to the fundamentally dialogical quality of all discourse and polyphony to indicate a manifestation of this property in texts1. According to Bakhtin (1986: 66–70) dialogue is primary to understand any form of discourse. Discourse is dialogical in two ways. First, every discourse or utterance has to be understood in relation to the discourses it quotes, mentions, imitates, presupposes, rejoins, explains, criticizes, satirizes, parodies, etc. Second, all kinds of discourse be they monological or dialogic are always oriented towards an addressee and his/her explicit and implicit response. Bakhtin (1982) observes that this orientation is particularly apparent in rhetorical discourse, which is aimed at securing the assent of the addressee and is internally constructed to anticipate the addressee’s reactions and objections. The dialogical nature of rhetorical discourse seemed even too obvious to Bakhtin, who was
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chiefly interested in uncovering dialogical relations in the apparently contextinsulated novelistic discourse. Both in its theory and in its reconstructive practices, Pragma-Dialectics embraces a fundamentally dialogistic approach to argumentative texts, which sets it apart from purely logical inferential approaches: “argumentative discourse is part of an exchange of views between two parties with a difference of opinion, even in cases in which the exchange of views occurs in the form of a monologue” (van Eemeren, Houtlosser and Snoeck Henkemans 2007: 10). Therefore the argumentative part of a monologic text is “regarded as that portion of a critical discussion in which the protagonist has the floor to defend his standpoint while the antagonist’s portion remains implicit” (Ibid.). In a monological argumentative text the presence of the absent antagonist and his contribution to the discussion can be expressed in a variety of ways, ranging from the explicit representation of the antagonist’s discourse in direct or indirect reported speech to the implicit signaling of his participation through various kind of linguistic and stylistic traces. This representation of the antagonist’s discourse is a natural site for various kinds of strategic maneuvering. Prolepsis, which I mentioned earlier among the speech-act level figures of speech, involves the staging of a voice which is separate from the actual voice of the speaker: this voice is fictively attributed to the antagonist in the discussion, but may or may not reflect the antagonist’s actual objections. Some Renaissance rhetoricians included prolepsis in a broader category called dialogismus, which comprises other kinds of staged dialogue, including the staging of a split-self argumentative soliloquy (cf. Rigotti 2005, Rocci 2005b). Sermocinatio was another classical rhetorical term for represented direct speech, dealing more specifically with the representation of dialogue to enliven the narratio. As for the term polyphony, it is used by Bakhtin (1982, 1984) in the context of his analysis of novelistic discourse to refer to a specific relationship between the voice of the author and the voices of the characters where – contrary to the traditional idea of reported speech, where a reporting voice embeds the discourse of the reported voice – these voices seem to have equal standing. Here I use polyphony, in analogy to Bakhtin’s use, to refer to a range of modes of expression of the presence of the voices of the antagonist and of other subjects playing a role in the interaction field of the discourse aiming at staging multiple confrontations that – apparently – are not subordinated one to the other. An interesting example of polyphony aimed at manoeuvring strategically in an argumentative confrontation is the advertisement in Figure 1, which is part of an advertising campaign launched by the major Swiss bank UBS on the wake of its difficulties and its subsequent subsidizing by the Swiss Confederation2.
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Figure 1. Print advertisement from UBS campaign, late 2008-early 2009.
To introduce the notion of polyphonic framing as a resource for strategic manoeuvring in argumentative confrontations it is useful to consider a number of striking features of the advertisement in Figure 1. Many of these features are present also in the other advertisements belonging to the same campaign, which portray other Swiss clients of the Bank. The advertisement contravenes to certain widespread layout conventions of the genre of print advertisement. Typically these advertisements conform to a genre-based superstructure3 consisting of a short large print headline, combined with the iconic part of the text (the visual), a longer text in smaller print known as the body copy, normally placed below the visual, an optional large print baseline text and, finally, a corporate slogan and logo, placed as a signature in the lower right part of the advertisement. The Shell advertisement examined in the following pages (in Figure 2, below) is a good example of this canonical structure. The UBS advertisement violates this schema most notably for the absence of any corporate logo and/or slogan signing the message and taking responsibility for the whole utterance. Instead we have the handwritten signature of the client accompanied by her name and profession and by the specification of her status of “client since 1977”. It is the sort of information someone would provide signing a public appeal or petition. The text also lacks the usual distinction between headline and body copy, featuring only one rather long block of text, in large print,
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Figure 2. The “Ferry” Shell institutional advertisement. (WSJE, December 6, 2005, p. 40)
attributed to the client. The only part of the text unequivocally attributed to the voice of the bank is the reporting preface in small print “UBS clients in their own words.” and the quotes enclosing the client’s text. Note also that this preface ends with a period, rather than with a colon, as expected when introducing a quotation. These typographical and stylistic choices have the effect of minimizing the ‘embeddedness’ of the reported text, almost refusing to frame it with the corporate voice of the bank. I make the hypothesis that the effect that these stylistic choices aim to achieve is to suggest a direct argumentative confrontation between the client portrayed and the addressee (who is arguably also a client or potential client of the bank) rather than an argumentative confrontation between the bank and the addressee where the testimony of the client is simply reported as an argument.
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There are no explicit hints to an argumentative speech act of the bank drawing conclusions from what the client says. The client’s quotation, on the contrary, is clearly argumentative in nature. This short text also contains no less than two dialogistic hints at argumentative antagonists by mentioning “the media” and those “people” who fail to question the media critically and are quick to lose confidence in the bank. Whether UBS is worthy of the clients’ confidence is, in fact, the issue generating the two opposite standpoints in the confrontation. The identification of the real antagonist – the addressee – with this second portrayed antagonist is possible but left undecided, as a sort of face-saving escape route for those who accept the argument. In the next section I provide a more developed analysis of another advertisement employing polyphony to impose a certain pragmatic frame to the discussion in relation to the confrontation stage.
5.
The reader, the Dutch bus driver and big oil: Staging the civic debate to manoeuvre in the confrontation stage
The final part of this paper is devoted to the analysis4 of an institutional advertisement, which shows a more complex form of maneuvering, where the recourse to a complex polyphony is exploited to maneuver at the level of the confrontation stage, offering implicitly multiple standpoints and multiple lines of argument to the open ended processing effort of the reader. The analysis will also showcase the crucial role of the context in constraining strategic manoeuvring. The text we analyze here – which I will call the “Ferry” advertisement, from the name of the character portrayed therein – is an institutional advertisement Royal Dutch Shell PLC (henceforth Shell) that appeared repeatedly in the financial daily Wall Street Journal Europe (WSJE) during the autumn–winter 2005. In order to situate the message more precisely I will refer to one “utterance token”: the appearance in the December 6 issue, on p. 40. The advertisement was part of a corporate communication campaign entitled “Everyday people”, composed of advertisements similar in format and theme. The campaign also involved the use of the Internet in conjunction with the print media. As for its collocation in the macro-text of the newspaper, the advertisement appears in a section entitled “Focus on Energy” below an article concerning the progress of the project of a pipeline to carry Russian oil to Asia, which encountered strong opposition from environmentalists alarmed that the planned pipeline could create serious environmental risks for Lake Baikal. The article mentions Shell in relation to another planned pipeline in the Russian Federation, where the company and its partners were obliged to reroute pipelines after the environmen-
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talists’ protest. Generic topical relevance of the advertisements to the content of the closest articles seems rather frequent in the WSJE. In this case, the connection is exceptionally precise as it concerns not only the industry sector but also the company and the issue of environmental responsibility. An important step towards reconstruction of argumentative structure and evaluation is figuring out the kind of activity type the advertisement works in. As for its interaction field (Rigotti & Rocci 2006b), the advertisement certainly invokes the institutional and organizational structure of the advertising company (Shell), of the newspaper hosting the advertisement (WSJ) as well as the institutional frame of the market of the print media. The reconstruction of the specific spot of the interaction field where the interaction is situated is, however, less obvious. As argued in (Rigotti & Rocci 2006b), a full fledged activity type emerges when interaction scheme – that is a culturally shared recipe for playing dialogue games – is applied to an actual interaction field characterized by a network of commitments. From the interpreter’s viewpoint, the attribution of the relevant scheme may depend, in turn, from genre recognition. The “Ferry” text is easily recognizable as an advertisement and attributable to Shell. As I anticipated above, this advertisement is also characterized by the typical genre-based superstructure of the print advertisement, which we found missing in the UBS text. The text can be segmented as follows according to the superstructure: Headline (1): How long before we see Hydrogen-powered vehicles on our roads? Visual:
Baseline: ‘About four minutes’ according to this Dutch bus driver Body Copy: [B1] Ferry Harlaar drives a number 38 bus in Amsterdam. [B2] People deliberately miss other buses in order to catch the one he drives. [B3] Why? [B4] Because Ferry’s bus may just be offering a glimpse of the future. [B5] It is powered purely by hydrogen and is part of an impor tant trial in European cities by Shell and its partners. [B6] Shell believes that hydrogen has the potential to one day provide an inexhaustible sup ply of clean energy for our cars and homes. [B7] We opened the first hydrogen filling station in Iceland and now have similar stations in Washington, Tokyo and Luxembourg with many more planned in the coming years. [B8] Find out how we’re providing energy for people now and in the future by visiting shell.com/ferry Signature: Corporate logo: <Shell logo>
The formal genre conventions, however, do not go as far as to tell us that the proper interaction scheme is the institutional advertisement. This is done on the
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basis of semantic considerations. Product advertisement can be excluded as one of the presuppositions of its main speech act is not satisfied. There is no real offer of a product that the addressee can buy so that the condition on the propositional content of the directive speech act cannot be satisfied5. In order to map the interaction scheme of the institutional advertisement on onto the interaction field we need to determine the kind of stakeholders (Post, Preston & Sauter-Sachs 2002) are addressed by the text. Two kinds of stakeholder relationships appear prominent for quite different reasons. On the one hand, the discussion of environmental issues in the advertisement as well as the mention of Shell in the adjacent article seem to evoke a controversy with environmentalists and a discussion with a more diffuse public opinion worried about the environment. On the other hand, the fact that the WSJE is a financial newspaper and hosts mainly financial advertisements, clearly selects the stakeholder relationship of investor relations and a public of investors and potential investors. (Cf. Post, Preston, & Sauter-Sachs 2002.) Clearly, different kinds of argumentative confrontations can be relevant to the two different communication flows, and choosing one or the other hypothesis can have important effects on the argumentative reconstruction when, as happens in this message, the standpoint being argued for is not made explicit. In our case, the solution that I have adopted is not to chose, but consider both kinds of stakeholder relationship. In fact, I will argue that the polyphonic framing strategy deployed in the text aims precisely at suggesting different confrontations and relate one to the other. In order to reconstruct the confrontation stage of the ‘Ferry’ argument we need to determine not only the standpoint put forth but also who is the antagonist in the discussion. Since the common ground between the protagonist and different antagonists may be different, the same standpoint could require different defenses. Moreover, making clear who is the antagonist is important to determine what is, in fact, the real standpoint of the discussion when the standpoint is implicit. Maneuvering with polyphonic framing becomes particularly significant in activity types – such as for instance those mentioned in van Eemeren & Houtlosser (2006: 384–385) that apparently deviate from a discussion between a protagonist and an antagonist by introducing the role of a “third party” – such as an adjudicator or a mediator. Shell’s institutional advertisement shows this kind of complex dialogical organization. In the ‘Ferry’ text, given that the issues of sustainability and environmental impact addressed by the campaign are indeed controversial, it is quite easy to identify the presupposed antagonist with those stakeholders (e.g. environmental activists) that have actually criticized Shell’s policies as pertains to those issues, or
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with a related but more diffuse segment of public opinion who expressed doubts about them. Looking at the whole ‘Everyday people campaign’ we see that the messages used do not hide such a controversy and hint at it in various ways, presenting themselves as a contribution aimed at bringing it towards rational resolution6. In this respect the individuation of the antagonist role seems much easier than in other monologue texts where this role can be only indirectly gleaned from the arguments put forth in the text. In fact, this apparent concreteness in adhering to the scheme of the critical discussion hides a more complex and stratified dialogism, which goes beyond a straightforward dialogue between one protagonist and one antagonist. It can be useful here to briefly look at classical rhetoric. In contrast with modern PragmaDialectics, ancient rhetoric typically presupposed a context of communication where a third participant was envisaged beyond the protagonist and the antagonist. The Rhetoric of Aristotle speaks of this participant as the krités, the “judge” or more generally the “decider” whom the protagonist has to persuade7. Some kinds of media discourse clearly presuppose three participants: in televised political debates, for instance, the discussion between the debaters is “staged” for the audience. Even if the debaters ostensibly address each other, the only decider whom they seek to persuade is the viewer. From the viewpoint of the critical discussion model we can interpret the above situation as one where multiple critical discussions are going on at the same time. For each debater the discussion that really matters from a perlocutionary viewpoint is the one with the absent krités. So, the krités is one of the antagonists: the one whom it really matters persuading. In the “Ferry” advertisement a similar situation is created also within the text through polyphony. Three voices are immediately recognizable as represented in the “Ferry” text: he voice of the we who asks the question in Headline 1, the reported voice of the bus driver in Headline 2 and the corporate voice of Shell in FOWJSPONFOUBMJTU DSJUJDT BOUBHPOJTU
XFQVCMJD PQJOJPO 4IFMM QSPUBHPOJTU
CVTESJWFS 'FSSZ *OUFSOBMMZSFQSFTFOUFEEJBMPHVF
4IFMM
84+SFBEFST JOWFTUPST LSJUÊTBOUBHPOJTU
Figure 3. External dialogue and internal polyphony in the “Ferry” advertisement.
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the body copy. It seems reasonable to identify the voice of Headline 1 with a very broad public opinion looking forward to alternative, cleaner and more sustainable energy sources. It becomes interesting at this point to pose the question of the relationship of this antagonist emerging from the internal polyphony of our text to the real world stakeholders, whose relevance we have gleaned by looking at the context: the real critics of Shell on environmental issues on the one hand, and the potential investors represented by the readership of the WSJE on the other. Here I make the hypothesis that the main krités whom the discourse seeks to persuade here is represented by the public of readers-investors and that the polyphony serves the purpose of representing the controversy over the environmental issues (the confrontation with the other real stakeholder) in a way that favors this rhetorical goal. The figure below offers a diagrammatic representation of this reconstruction of the stratification of dialogues implied by the “Ferry” advertisement. But in order to give further substantiation to this interpretation we should have a closer look at the argumentative organization of the message.
6.
Multiple confrontations and multiple argumentations
In the ideal procedure of a critical discussion the first step is the confrontation stage where “it becomes clear that there is a standpoint that is not accepted because it runs up against doubt or contradiction” (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004: 60). Advancing a standpoint and casting doubt on it are the speech acts that realize this stage explicitly. In the case of the ‘Ferry’ text, however, the main standpoint is neither directly expressed nor straightforwardly reconstructible. In the headline the main candidate to the role of standpoint is Ferry’s answer to the question of the we public voice: (14) ‘About four minutes’ according to this Dutch bus driver
Ferry’s statement is accompanied by an explicit source attribution and the visual itself, portraying Ferry’s face, can be seen as a part of the source attribution. Source attribution can have an argumentative function as part of inferential schemes like the ‘argument from expert opinion’ (argumentum ex auctoritate) or the ‘argument from position to know’. Thus, the source attribution can be considered as a prima facie argumentative indicator suggesting that Ferry’s statement has the status of a standpoint.
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Here a further complication is the fact, that, in order to fully interpret the headline and derive a standpoint from it we have to work out a particular type of trope. The trope involved in the interpretation of the headline and baseline is a particular kind of synecdoche involving a process that Fauconnier (2004)8 calls blending. In order to interpret Ferry’s statement as a relevant answer we need to construct it as a synecdochic blend of two “worlds”: the general adoption of hydrogen powered vehicles, and to the arrival of a specific bus (n. 38) at a specific bus stop in Amsterdam. In the first world the variable time is an unknown quantity that the question seeks to saturate – we do not know when hydrogen will be adopted. But Ferry knows when bus n. 38 will arrive at the bus stop (about 4’). In the blended text the time of the specific event gets incongruously combined with the question concerning the general adoption of hydrogen and is reinterpreted as something like very soon or now. Interestingly the general-specific relation of the synecdoche is exploited from an argumentative point of view: the bus n. 38 is an example of the more general situation of the adoption of hydrogen fuel. So we are led to reconstruct the standpoint as follows: Standpoint: Hydrogen-powered vehicles already circulate on our roads
It has to be remarked that both the question and the standpoint derived via the blending are vague between a minimally existential interpretation (How long before we see at least one vehicle?) and a – more pragmatically relevant – enriched interpretation (How long before we see a significant number of vehicles?). The argumentative force of the bus n.38 example is stronger in the minimal interpretation and much feebler in the enriched interpretation. At this point it is important to observe that the full interpretation of the blending and the argument that can be reconstructed from it is available only once the reader has processed the body copy of the advertisement and learned of the existence of Ferry’s bus n. 38. If we consider the headline alone the most easily available interpretation is that of the argument from expert opinion presented below in Figure 4. Obviously this line of interpretation leads the reader to reconstruct a blatantly unsound argument: it is not at all clear how being a “Dutch bus driver” would satisfy the requirements of expert status for hydrogen fuel. The unsoundness is not meant to be deceptive, however: the reader recognizes having been lead along a “garden path” and is invited to read further to recover the right interpretation. This is consistent with the function of the headline in an advertisement, which is as much to attract the reader’s curiosity towards the body copy as to present an argument on its own.
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Figure 4. The prima facie argument from expert opinion from the headline of the “Ferry” advertisement.
Once the body copy has been taken into consideration the role of Ferry changes: he is no longer the authority supporting the standpoint, but a witness (cf. the argument from position to know in Walton 1996: 61–63) whose testimony certifies the authenticity of the exemplum supporting the standpoint. What is remarkable here from the viewpoint of Shell’s communicative strategy is the recourse to an “everyday” witness to certify the example. Shell could have just told us that there is such a bus in Amsterdam, without the recourse to a witness9. If we now look at the body copy in more detail, we find that, apart from allowing a reinterpretation of the headline, it presents an argumentation of its own. The use of the epistemic predicate believe in [B6] is an indicator of a “point of view”, which could be identified with the standpoint put forth (cf. Houtlosser 2001 on this predicate as an argumentative indicator) in the body copy. [B6] Shell believes that hydrogen has the potential to one day provide an inexhaustible supply of clean energy for our cars and homes.
It is interesting to observe that while [B6] is closely related to the standpoint of the headline it revises it significantly in one respect: instead of in about ‘4 we get a non‑committal one day. Notwithstanding the closeness of [B6] to the standpoint of the headline, I have opted for an analysis where this statement does not play the role of standpoint of the argumentation that appears in the body copy. The reason for opting for a different, implicit, standpoint rather than [B6], is to provide a
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Figure 5. Revision of the headline argument after the interpretation of the body copy.
standpoint which is more immediately related with the expected concerns in the context of discussion: environment and sustainability. The scheme above tries to provide a maximally argumentative reading (cf. van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004: 116) of the body copy where all potentially relevant statements are given an argumentative role. The whole argument turns out to be based on an abductive argument from the final cause – that is from the ontology of goals. We can describe the relevant argument scheme as follows: Premise 1: A believes that X will bring about Y Premise 2: A acts to cause X Conclusion: Then A is committed to goal Y
If this interpretation is correct the body copy puts the discussion on the advent of hydrogen as fuel for ordinary vehicles into a broader perspective, and makes it more directly relevant for the concerns of environmental sustainability (clean) and renewability (inexhaustible) that are prominent in the communication context. In this overall argumentative strategy, Ferry plays the strikingly minor role of a witness of an example of a project aiming at the development of a sustainable and renewable energy source. Given the rhetorical prominence of Ferry in the text, his minor role in the argument poses a problem to our reconstruction.
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Figure 6. The argumentative reconstruction of the body copy of the “Ferry’’ advertisement. The gray boxes represent implicit steps in the argument.
It is however possible to solve this apparent paradox by making an hypothesis which is both consistent with the available data concerning Shell’s “Everyday people” campaign and illuminating with respect to the strategic role of dialogism phenomena. We can hypothesize that while it presents the arguments outlined above, Shell’s advertisement also argues indirectly for another equally important standpoint, which is left implicit. It is quite plausible that one of the objectives of the “Everyday People” campaign, which features the voices of “normal” people whose life is affected by Shell’s activities, was to persuade that Shell is a company that listens to the public opinion, and, in particular, to what ordinary people and local communities have to say. Analyses of Shell’s communication during previous incidents related to environmental issues (Hatch and Schultz 2002, Post, Preston & Sauter-Sachs 2002) strongly emphasize the problems the company encountered in this respect. Under this hypothesis, a plausible reconstruction of this parallel argumentation is the following in Figure 7. This hypothesis can explain the insistence on the role of Ferry as someone in the position to know about hydrogen. While Ferry’s opinion is, in itself, largely irrelevant for the discussion about the subject of hydrogen as a renewable and sustainable energy source for the near future, Shell’s listening and giving prominence
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Standpoint: Shell is involved with ordinary local people and listens to them on matters concerning energetic sustainability and environmental impact.
Exemplum (Inductive Argument) Shell is involved in a project with this ordinary person (Ferry Harlaar) and values his opinion about hydrogen power. (Conjunction of the premises)
This person (Ferry Harlaar) is an ordinary person
Look at the homely ordinary face of this person (From V)
This person is a bus driver (From H2)
Other advertisements of the Everyday People campaign. (From intertextuality)
This person (Ferry Harlaar) is involved in a project with Shell
Shell values the opinion of this person (Ferry Harlaar) about hydrogen power.
This person (Ferry Harlaar) drives a hydrogen powered bus in Amsterdam which is part of an important trial by Shell and its partners. (From B)
This person's (Ferry Harlaar) statement about hydrogen powered vehicles is quoted in in a Shell advertisement. (From the whole advertisement)
Figure 7. The parallel argumentation of the “Ferry” advertisement.
to Ferry’s opinion is relevant as a proof of the listening attitude of the company, which is the standpoint of the parallel line of argument. If we maintain the hypothesis that investors are the main krités in the “Ferry” advertisement, we can conclude that Shell seeks to reassure them about the possible financial consequences of controversies and conflicts on environmental issues by representing a staged dialogue on environmental issues with a very broad public opinion. Actual environmentalist critics are absent from the stage of the dialogue, although they remain inevitably implicitly present as the originators of an opposite standpoint. From the point of view of the final krités both the conclusion of the staged dialogue (“Shell is committed to environmental sustainability and renewability”) and the way this conclusion is arrived at – with the participation of ordinary people to the dialogue – are relevant as arguments contributing to reassure the investor about the way Shell deals with environmental issues. In a sense, only one confrontation really matters and the other confrontations resulting from the polyphonic framing of the argument are ultimately subsumed as arguments for the standpoint of the real confrontation with the krités. This last remark, however, has right of citizenship only as far as the critical evaluation of the argument is concerned. From a rhetorical viewpoint all the confrontations, all the dialogues evoked are designed to be perceived as equally lively, equally real, and important.
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References Bakhtin, M. (1982). The dialogic imagination. (C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press. Bakhtin, M. (1984). Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. (C. Emerson, Ed. & Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Michigan Press. Bakhtin, M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays. (C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Eds. V. W. McGee, Trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press. Ducrot, O. (1984). Le dire et le dit. Paris: Minuit. 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. (2006). Strategic maneuvering: A synthetic recapitulation. Argumentation, 20, 381–392. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2002). Strategic maneuvring 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. Eemeren, F. H. van, Houtlosser, P., & Snoeck Henkemans, A. F. (2007). Argumentative indicators in discourse. A Pragma-Dialectical Study. Dordercht: Springer. Fauconnier, G. (2004). Mental spaces, language modalities, and conceptual integration. In S. Davis & B. S. Gillon (Eds.), Semantics: A Reader (pp. 346–365). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fillmore, C. J. (2003). Form and meaning in language. Stanford, CA: CSLI. Grimes, J. E. (1975). The thread of discourse. The Hague: Mouton. Halliday, M. A. K. (1977). Text as semantic choice in social contexts. In T. van Dijk & J. Petofi (Eds.), Grammars and descriptions. Berlin: de Gruyter. Hatch, M. J., & Schultz, M. (2002). The dynamics of organizational identity. Human Relations, 55, 989–1018. Houtlosser, P. (2002). Indicators of point of view. In F. H. van Eemeren (Ed.), Advances in pragma-dialectics. Amsterdam: SicSat. Hulstijn, J. (2003). Roles in Dialogue. In I. Kruijff-Korbayova (Ed.), Proceedings of the 7th Workshop on Formal Semantics and Pragmatics of Dialogue (Diabrück) (pp. 43–50). Saarbrücken: Universität des Saarlandes. Ilie, C. (2005). An integrated approach to the analysis of participant roles in totalitarian discourse. In L. Saussure & P. Schulz (Eds.), Manipulation and ideologies in the twentieth century: Discourse, language, mind. [Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 17] (pp. 191–211). Amsterdam: Benjamins. Levinson, S. C. (1992). Activity types and language. In P. Drew & J. Heritage (Eds.), Talk at work (pp. 66–100). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mann, W. C. (1988). Dialogue-games: Conventions of human interaction. Argumentation, 2(4), 511–532. Mann, W. C., & Thompson, S. A. (1987). Rhetorical structure theory: A theory of text organization (Tech. Rep. No. RS-87-190). Marina del Rey: University of Southern California, Information Science Institute. Nølke, H., Fløttum, K., & Norén, C. (2004). ScaPoLine. La théorie scandinave de la polyphonie linguistique. Paris: Éditions Kimé.
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Perelman, C., & Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1958). La nouvelle rhéthorique. Traité de l’argumentation. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Pilkington, A. (2000). Poetic effects: A relevance theory perspective. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Post, J. E., Preston, L. E. & Sauter-Sachs, S. (2002). Redefining the corporation: Stakeholder management and organizational wealth. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Rigotti, E. (1992). Reinterpretazione pragmatica di alcune categorie fondamentali della linguistica strutturale: Livello, sintagma, paradigma. In G. Gobber (Ed.), La Linguistica Pragmatica. Atti del XXIV Congresso Internazionale di Studi. Milano 4–6 settembre 1990. Rome: Bulzoni. Rigotti, E. (2005). Congruity theory and argumentation. Studies in Communication Sciences (2005, Special issue Argumentation in Dialogic Interaction): 75–96. Rigotti, E., & Rocci, A. (2001). Sens – non-sens – contresens. Studies in Communication Sciences, 2, 45–80. Rigotti, E. & Rocci, A. (2006a). Le signe linguistique comme structure intermédiaire. In L. de Saussure (Ed.), Nouvelles perspectives sur Saussure. Mélanges offerts à René Amacker, Publications du Cercle Ferdinand de Saussure (pp. 219–247). Genève: Droz. Rigotti, E., & Rocci, A. (2006b). Towards a definition of communication context. In M. Colombetti (Ed.), The communication sciences as a multidisciplinary enterprise, studies in communication sciences, 6(2), 155–180. Rocci, A. (2005a). Are manipulative texts coherent? Manipulation, presuppositions, and (in-) congruity. In L. Saussure & P. Schulz (Eds.), Manipulation and ideologies in the twentieth century: Discourse, language, mind. [Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 17] (pp. 85–112). Amsterdam: Benjamins. Rocci, A. (2005b). Connective predicates in monologic and dialogic argumentation. In M. Dascal, F. H. van Eemeren, E. Rigotti, S. Stati and A. Rocci (Eds.), Argumentation in dialogic interaction. Studies in communication sciences, (pp. 97–118). Rocci, A. (2006). Pragmatic inference and argumentation in intercultural communication, Intercultural Pragmatics, 3(4), 409–442. Rocci, A. (2008). Analysing and evaluating persuasive media discourse in context. In Burger, M. (Ed.), L’Analyse linguistique des discours médiatiques. Entre sciences du langage et sciences de la communication (pp. 247–284). Québec: Nota Bene. Roulet, E., Filliettaz, L. Grobet, A., & Burger, M. (2001). Un modèle et un instrument d’analyse de l’organisation du discours. Bern: Peter Lang. Tannen, D. & C. Wallat (1987). Interactive frames and knowledge schemas in interaction: Examples from a medical examination/interview. Social Psychology Quarterly [Special Issue: Language and Social Interaction], 50(2), 205–216. Tannen, D. (1979). What’s in a frame? Surface evidence for underlying expectations. In R. Freedle (Ed.), New Directions in Discourse Processing (pp. 137–181). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Tannen, D. (2007). Talking voices. Repetition, dialogue and imagery in conversational discourse (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Walton, D. N. (1996). Argument schemes for presumptive reasoning. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
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Notes 1. This distinction does not claim absolute exegetical exactitude or completeness. Certainly Bakhtin uses the same terms in subtly different ways in his writings. Dialogism, for instance, sometimes refers to a fundamental dialogic property of language, sometimes to the presence of more than one voice in discourse (i.e. as an hyperonym of polyphony). 2. The full corpus of advertisements used in the campaign and a corporate statement describing it are available at the following URL: http://www.ubs.com/1/e/ubs_ch/campaign.html (Accessed on 1/31/2009). 3. We use here the term superstructure (van Dijk, Teun A. 1985) rather loosely to indicate a generic macro-syntactic template which is part of what Bakhtin called compositional structure, or form of the whole. 4. An earlier version of this case study, examining with greater detail the relationship with communication context and the reconstruction of the argumentation stage, is presented in Rocci (2008). 5. This point is somewhat subtle: the advertisement is about a Shell product – hydrogen fuel – but given the limited availability of this product the recourse to an advertisement in the WSJE would not make sense economically as a means to reach potential consumers. Readers, however, do not need to make this inference: they simply know they are not going to buy hydrogen and if they get interested in the advertisement it will not be as potential consumers. 6. It is worth mentioning that the campaign took place in parallel with other corporate communication initiatives that emphasize the value of a discussion involving the open expression of disagreement: this is the case, in particular, of the Tell Shell website, featuring open “uncensored” discussion forum which was active in 2005 during the campaign and that was also indirectly connected to the print media campaign via the web pages referenced in the print advertisements (in our text the address is www.shell.com/ferry), which are navigationally part of the Tell Shell website and just “one click away” from the discussion forum. 7. “The use of persuasive speech is to lead to decisions. (When we know a thing, and have decided about it, there is no further use in speaking about it.) This is so even if one is addressing a single person and urging him to do or not to do something, as when we scold a man for his conduct or try to change his views: the single person is as much your “judge” as if he were one of many; we may say, without qualification, that any one is your judge whom you have to persuade. Nor does it matter whether we are arguing against an actual opponent or against a mere proposition; in the latter case we still have to use speech and overthrow the opposing arguments, and we attack these as we should attack an actual opponent. Our principle holds good of ceremonial speeches also; the “onlookers” for whom such a speech is put together are treated as the judges of it. Broadly speaking, however, the only sort of person who can strictly be called a judge is the man who decides the issue in some matter of public controversy; that is, in law suits and in political debates, in both of which there are issues to be decided.” (Aristotle, Rhetoric, Book II Chapter 18, translated by W. Rhys Roberts).
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8. See Rocci (2008) for a more detailed analysis of this trope using Fauconnier’s model. 9. In another advertisement of the same campaign the emphasis on Ferry’s knowledge is even stronger as he is portrayed answering affirmatively directly to the question Can Hydrogen provide tomorrow’s energy? See Balduzzi 2006.
Persuasive effects of strategic maneuvering Some findings from meta-analyses of experimental persuasion effects research Daniel J. O’Keefe
1.
Introduction
The subject of the persuasive effects of strategic maneuvering naturally invites some discussion of what might be learned from the quite substantial empirical (especially experimental) research literature concerning factors influencing persuasive effects. Of course, the extant research on persuasive effects has not been conducted or reported using the language of “strategic maneuvering,” so the place to start is by considering what is to count as a strategic maneuver. Van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2001, p. 151) describe strategic maneuvering as advocates’ “attempt to make use of the opportunities available in the dialectical situation for steering the discourse rhetorically in the direction that serves their own interests best” – where their own interests are to be understood as, most fundamentally, having their views prevail. So presumably anything that advocates might do to help them persuade will count as a strategic maneuver. (Notice that van Eemeren and Houtlosser’s definition does not assume that any of these strategic maneuvers is effective. A strategic maneuver is simply something an advocate does in an attempt to forward their interests.) Approached in this way, one can see that the extant social-scientific research on persuasion already provides a very extensive literature on (what amounts to) the persuasive effects of certain kinds of strategic maneuvering – indeed, there is rather more work of this sort than could possibly be discussed here. So this chapter’s attention will be restricted to a subset of that research literature, namely, research concerning the persuasive effects of message variations where sufficient research evidence has accumulated to permit one to be reasonably confident about the size of the effect associated with the message variation. Concretely speaking,
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this focus means attending especially to message-variation research that has already been subjected to meta-analytic review.
2.
Background
As a backdrop to this enterprise, it will be useful to describe some alternative means of expressing effect sizes and a potentially useful way of differentiating strategic maneuvers.
Effect size expressions The research studies of interest here are experiments in which (canonically) two different message conditions are compared. For example, a researcher might compare a message in which the overall conclusion is stated explicitly and a parallel message in which that conclusion is omitted (left implicit). The research question is which of these two versions is more persuasive (as reflected in differences in, for instance, postcommunication attitudes). In any individual study, the observed difference in persuasiveness between the two messages can be expressed numerically as an “effect size,” a quantitative index of the size and direction of the difference. Given some number of such studies, an average effect size can be computed.1 Note that this average effect size describes the average difference in persuasiveness between the two message types and so provides a sense of the potential persuasive advantage that an advocate might obtain by choosing the more persuasive strategic option. For each message variation discussed here, accumulated research already provides an estimate of the average size of the effect, that is, the average difference in persuasiveness between the two message types. Effect sizes can be expressed in a number of different (equivalent) ways. Three such expressions are used here. The first is a correlation coefficient (r). This is a quantity that ranges from –1.00 to 1.00; when there is no difference between the conditions being contrasted, the correlation is .00. Larger effects are represented by quantities whose absolute values are closer to 1.00. (The sign of the correlation is arbitrary – though obviously in computing an average effect size across studies, one wants to be sure to be consistent in using a positive sign to represent, for example, the effects in studies that found greater persuasiveness with explicit conclusions than with implicit conclusions and a negative sign where the direction of effect indicated greater persuasiveness for implicit conclusions.) A second way of expressing these effect sizes is based on the standardized mean difference (d). A standardized mean difference is a fraction in which the numerator is the difference (in, say, postcommunication attitude) between the
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two conditions and the denominator is the pooled standard deviation. Thus a standardized mean difference expresses the difference between conditions as (literally) some portion of a standard deviation. For instance, a d of .5 indicates that the two means differ by half a standard deviation.2 But in addition to expressing effects using r and d (which in any case is straightforwardly related to r), I also want to use what I think will be a familiar concrete realization of d, namely, differences between scores on intellectual aptitude (intelligence, IQ) tests. I hasten to say that in using this concrete example, I make no assumptions or claims about the nature of intelligence, the existence of any general intelligence factor, and so forth. But it is widely known that the average IQ score is (set to be) 100, and I think there is implicit familiarity with the idea that the standard deviation is 15 – with this understanding being reflected in, for instance, the common recognition that a score of (say) 150 is an exceptionally high score (even if it’s not understood that a score of 150 is more than three standard deviations above the mean). Thus IQ score differences provide a convenient vehicle for the expression of otherwise-abstract mean effect sizes. For example, a standardized mean difference (d) of 2.0 (two standard deviations above the mean) is equivalent to the difference between IQ scores of 100 and 130. A d of 1.0 is equivalent to the difference between 100 and 115; a d of 1.5 is equivalent to the difference between scores of 100 and 123 (122.5); and so on. So the broad question to be pursued here is: Among those strategic maneuvers that have been sufficiently studied so as to give some confidence in conclusions about the average effect size associated with that maneuver’s strategic options, how large is the persuasive advantage conferred by choosing one strategic-maneuver option over the alternative? It must be acknowledged that to a certain extent this venture is akin to the drunk who looks for his keys under the lamppost – not because that’s where he lost them but because that’s where the light is better: The message variations discussed here are ones about which we can say something regarding the typical magnitude of effect. This does not mean these maneuvers are the most important varieties of strategic maneuvers, or the most interesting, or the ones that have the largest effects, or the ones most threatening to normatively-good advocacy practice. These just happen to be relatively muchstudied persuasive message variations.
Two varieties of strategic maneuvers In discussing what we know about these message variations, I want to deploy a broad distinction between strategic maneuvers that involve making the same arguments (no matter which strategic option is chosen) and strategic maneuvers that involve making different arguments (depending on which option is chosen).
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Consider, for example, message framing variations, specifically the contrast between gain-framed appeals and loss-framed appeals (e.g., Detweiler, Bedell, Salovey, Pronin, & Rothman, 1999). A gain-framed appeal is one that emphasizes the advantages of adopting the communicator’s recommended viewpoint; a loss-framed appeal emphasizes the disadvantages of not adopting the advocated view. “If you take your high blood pressure medication, you’ll probably get to play with your grandchildren” is a gain-framed appeal; “if you don’t take your high blood pressure medication, you might not get to play with your grandchildren” is a loss-framed appeal. Parallel gain-framed and loss-framed appeals obviously invoke the same underlying substantive consideration in seeking agreement; that is, this message variation amounts to different ways of expressing the same underlying argument. By comparison, consider the contrast between one-sided and two-sided persuasive messages. A one-sided message offers only supporting arguments (that is, arguments supporting the advocated view); a two-sided message both presents supporting arguments and discusses opposing arguments. The contrast between one-sided and two-sided messages is thus a contrast that involves substantively different arguments in the two messages. This distinction (between variations that involve the same underlying arguments and those that involve making different arguments) may articulate with some aspects of pragma-dialectics. Pragma-dialectics offers a framework for understanding and analyzing the normative requirements for critical discussion. Recognizing that advocates might undertake strategic maneuvers so as to gain rhetorical advantage, the question becomes one of the degree to which such maneuvering might undermine normative ideals. As van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2005, p. 32) indicated, “certain instances of strategic maneuvering” can be “dialectically sound” (normatively unobjectionable) while others are “fallacious” (normatively dubious), and hence the task is one of “developing criteria” for identifying sound and fallacious maneuvering. One variety of strategic maneuver of special interest to pragma-dialectics is what van Eemeren and Houtlosser have called a “presentational device,” “the phrasing of moves in light of their discursive and stylistic effectiveness” (2001, p. 152; see also van Eemeren & Houtlosser, 2000, 2005). One imagines that presentational devices are the sorts of things that do not involve substantive variation in argument; that is, a presentational device seems to be the sort of strategic maneuver in which the advocate presents an argument one way rather than another (so as to gain rhetorical advantage) – but the underlying argument is the same no matter how presented.3
3.
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Maneuvers involving the same arguments
There is sufficient meta-analytic evidence to permit some conclusions about mean effect sizes for at least five different maneuvers involving messages that offer the same argumentative considerations: gain-loss appeal framing, explicit versus implicit conclusions, identified versus unidentified information sources, complete versus incomplete (enthymematic) arguments, and figurative versus literal expressions.
Gain-loss appeal framing As mentioned earlier, one strategic maneuver available to advocates involves a contrast between gain-framed appeals (ones emphasizing the desirable aspects of compliance with the advocated view) and loss-framed appeals (ones emphasizing undesirable aspects of noncompliance). A meta-analytic review of such studies concluded that there is no dependable difference in the persuasiveness of these two appeal forms (O’Keefe & Jensen, 2006). The mean effect (in a random-effects analysis with 165 cases) corresponds to a correlation of .02, a d of .04, and the difference between IQ scores of 100 and 101. Explicit conclusions A second maneuver available to advocates is to state explicitly the overall conclusion or point of one’s message, as opposed to leaving that conclusion implicit (unstated). This message variation obvious does not alter the substantive arguments advanced in the message; all that changes is whether the advocate overtly draws the overall conclusion for the audience. The relevant empirical studies compare the persuasiveness of two messages that vary in whether they contain such an explicit conclusion. A meta-analytic review of such studies suggests that messages containing an explicit statement of the advocate’s overall conclusion are significantly more persuasive than parallel messages omitting such a statement (O’Keefe, 2002; see also O’Keefe, 1997). The mean effect (in a random-effects analysis with 17 cases) corresponds to a correlation of .10, a d of .20, and the difference between IQ scores of 100 and 103. Identification of information sources Another strategy that advocates might deploy is to explicitly identify the source(s) of opinion and information that are presented in the message. An advocate who identifies information sources in this way is not making any new or different appeals; the advocate is merely specifying the sources relied upon for the arguments that were made. In the relevant empirical research, then, what varies is whether the message contains such identification of information sources. A meta-analytic
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review of this research concluded that messages providing such source identification are more persuasive than counterpart messages omitting that information (O’Keefe, 1998). The mean effect (in a random-effects analysis with 13 cases) corresponds to a correlation of .07, a d of .14, and the difference between IQ scores of 100 and 102.
Argument completeness Advocates can vary the degree to which they completely spell out their arguments – the degree to which they provide provides explicit articulation of premises and conclusions, supporting information, and so forth. In the relevant experimental studies, the two messages advance the same arguments; what varies is the degree to which the argument is articulated (expressed completely). O’Keefe’s (1998) meta-analytic review of such studies reported a significant persuasive advantage for messages with more complete supporting arguments. That is, more complete renditions of an advocate’s supporting arguments are likely to be more persuasive than less complete arguments. The mean effect (in a random-effects analysis with 18 cases) corresponds to a correlation of .14, a d of .28, and the difference between IQ scores of 100 and 104. Figurative versus literal expressions The relative persuasiveness of figurative expressions (especially metaphors) and corresponding literal expressions has been explored in a number of studies. In this research, the two messages advance the same underlying arguments, but where one message employs more literal language (e.g., “television has harmful effects”), the other uses a figurative expression (e.g., “television is poison”). Sopory and Dillard’s (2002) review of this research found a significant persuasive advantage for figurative messages. The mean effect (with 38 cases) corresponds to a correlation of .07, a d of .14, and the difference between IQ scores of 100 and 102. 4.
Maneuvers involving different arguments
For at least two different maneuvers involving presentation of substantively different arguments, there is sufficient meta-analytic evidence to underwrite some conclusions about mean effect sizes: one-sided versus two-sided messages and culturally-adapted versus unadapted value appeals.
One-sided versus two-sided messages One choice advocates can face is whether to ignore opposing arguments or to discuss them. A “one-sided” message presents only supporting arguments and so
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ignores opposing arguments; a “two-sided” message both presents supporting arguments and discusses opposing arguments. Obviously, one-sided and two-sided messages differ in argumentative content; that is, this is not merely a contrast between two different ways of presenting the same arguments, but rather a contrast between two substantively different sets of arguments. A good deal of research has accumulated concerning the relative persuasiveness of one-sided and two-sided messages (O’Keefe, 1999). But the mean effect (from a random-effects analysis with 107 cases) is almost literally zero, corresponding to a correlation of –.00 (–.001), a d of –.00, and (obviously) IQ scores of 100 and 100. This overall effect, however, conceals an important variation in how twosided messages can discuss opposing considerations. “Refutational” two-sided messages discuss opposing arguments by attempting to refute them (undermine them); “nonrefutational” two-sided messages mention opposing considerations but do not try to refute them directly (but instead commonly try to overwhelm them with supportive arguments). Refutational two-sided messages enjoy a general persuasive advantage over one-sided messages (O’Keefe, 1999); the mean effect (in a random-effects analysis with 42 cases) corresponds to a correlation of .08, a d of .16, and the difference between IQ scores of 100 and 102. On the other hand, nonrefutational two-sided messages are dependably less persuasive than their one-sided counterparts; the mean effect (in a random-effects analysis with 65 cases) corresponds to a correlation of –.05, a d of –.10, and the difference between IQ scores of 100 and 102 (or, if you like, 98 and 100).
Adapting appeals to cultural values It is a commonplace of effective persuasion that one’s arguments should be “adapted” to one’s audience. There are of course a great many different bases on which appeals might be adapted to audiences, but one obviously important basis for appeal adaptation is provided by the audience’s values. Arguments that suggest that the advocated view is connected to relatively important audience values (compared to less important ones) presumably are likely to be more persuasive. This might be seen as a particular realization of the class of strategic maneuvers that van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2001) call “adaptation to audience demand,” that is, “putting the topics of the discussion in a perspective which is expected to appeal to the [audience]” (pp. 154–155). For example, in the realm of consumer product advertising, advertisers are (one imagines) likely to be more successful if they suggest that product purchase or use will lead to highly-valued outcomes than if they suggest less-valuable outcomes. Obviously, this sort of message variation involves making substantively
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different arguments; that is, the difference between a value-adapted appeal and a value-unadapted appeal consists in the different arguments that are advanced. Some research on the effects of value adaptation of advertising appeals has used cultural differences as a proxy for value variation. Cultures differ broadly with respect to the relative importance of certain values, and these differences afford natural bases for corresponding adaptation of advertising appeals. Thus a number of studies have been conducted comparing the persuasiveness of appeals that are either adapted or unadapted to the audience’s cultural values. The exemplary primary research study in this area compares the persuasiveness of two advertising appeals for each of two different cultural audiences. For example, Aaker and Schmitt (2001, study 1) compared individualistic (“differentiation”) and collectivistic (“assimilation”) appeals for American and Chinese participants, using advertisements for a watch. The individualism appeal was expected to be adapted for the American audience and unadapted for the Chinese audience, and vice versa for the collectivism appeal. A meta-analytic review of the research concerning the adaptation of consumer advertising appeals to the audience’s cultural values found that, as one might expect, culturally-adapted value appeals are significantly more persuasive than their unadapted counterparts (Hornikx & O’Keefe, in press). The mean effect (in a random-effects analysis with 67 cases) corresponds to a correlation of .07, a d of .14, and the difference between IQ scores of 100 and 102.
5.
Discussion
One thing will be obvious about all these mean effect sizes: They are quite small. Across the eight factors discussed here (treating separately the comparisons involving different varieties of two-sided messages), the largest mean effect size is only r = .14 (d = .28, the difference between IQ scores of 100 and 104). But the other striking aspect of these results is that there is not that much difference in the size of the effects associated with “presentational devices” (across those five, the simple average of effects is r = .08, which corresponds to d = .16, or the difference between IQ scores of 100 and 102) and the effects associated with substantive variation in arguments (across those three – again treating the two two-sided message varieties separately – the simple mean of the absolute value of the effects is r = .06, d = .12, or the difference between IQ scores of 100 and 102). So there is both good news and bad news here, normatively speaking. On the one hand, there does not seem to be much to fear from the presentational devices reviewed here. The difference it makes (to persuasive outcomes) to use one of these presentation-device options rather than the other is (a) not large in absolute
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terms and (b) certainly not larger than the persuasive advantages conferred by deploying substantively different arguments. There seems little basis for fearing that wily advocates can easily bamboozle audiences merely by the way they present their arguments. On the other hand – and perhaps worryingly – it also does not seem to matter much to persuasive outcomes exactly what arguments an advocate makes. For example, if an advocate undertakes refutation of opposing arguments rather than simply ignoring those arguments, the advocate is likely to be more persuasive – but not all that much more persuasive. Similarly, advocates are only a little more persuasive if they appeal to outcomes more valued by the audience as opposed to appealing to outcomes less valued. This last conclusion must be hedged a bit, however, because of the paucity of evidence about other possible substantive argument variations. It may well be that there are in fact large effects associated with advocates’ choice of which arguments to deploy, but that the relevant dimensions of argument variation have not yet been identified or have not yet received sufficient empirical attention to permit confident generalization. So where might one look if one wanted to identify substantive-argument-choice variations that might plausibly produce relatively large persuasive effects? Surely a natural candidate would be elaboration likelihood model (ELM) research on argument quality variations (e.g., Petty, Cacioppo, & Goldman, 1981). One reason for advancing this as a likely suspect is recent hints that ELM argument quality variations are capable of producing relatively large effects on persuasive outcomes (Park, Levine, Westermann, Orfgen, & Foregger, 2007).4 But ELM argument quality research is unfortunately conceptually not well-formed (for some analysis, see O’Keefe, 2003; O’Keefe & Jackson, 1995). In particular, research on argument-quality variations has often confounded various message features in such a way as to make it difficult to discern the active element responsible for any observed effects. However, work by a number of investigators has converged on the idea that the key ingredient in ELM argument quality variations may be the desirability (as opposed to the likelihood) of the policy outcomes or object attributes (e.g., Areni & Lutz, 1988; Hustinx, van Enschot, & Hoeken, 2007; Smith-McLallen, 2005; van Enschot-van Dijk, Hustinx, & Hoeken, 2003). Thus messages whose arguments emphasize highly desirable outcomes would, naturally enough, be more persuasive than those emphasizing only moderately desirable outcomes. But if outcome (or attribute) desirability does provide a basis for message variations that characteristically produce large differences in persuasiveness, then one puzzle to be explained is why advertising appeals that invoke important cultural values are only (on average) slightly more persuasive than parallel appeals
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that invoke demonstrably less important values (Hornikx & O’Keefe, in press). I do not mean to imply that there are no possible explanations at hand for why cultural-value-adaptation effects might be rather smaller than other value-adaptation effects. But the results for cultural value adaptation do suggest that there is no guarantee that appeals invoking more desirable outcomes will enjoy large persuasive advantages over those invoking less desirables ones. In any case, it should be plain that we do not yet have research evidence that identifies any strategic maneuver that dependably produces a large persuasive advantage. And, rather surprisingly, that holds true both for maneuvers that vary the ways arguments are presented and for maneuvers that vary the substance of arguments. Thus although there is little reason to fear that superficial presentational variations will deeply affect persuasive success, there is similarly little reason to hope that substantive argumentative variation will have dramatic effects.
References Aaker, J. L., & Schmitt, B. (2001). Culture-dependent assimilation and differentiation of the self: Preferences for consumption symbols in the United States and China. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 32, 561–576. Areni, C. S., & Lutz, R. J. (1988). The role of argument quality in the elaboration likelihood model. Advances in Consumer Research, 15, 197–203. Detweiler, J. B., Bedell, B. T., Salovey, P., Pronin, E., & Rothman, A. J. (1999). Message framing and sunscreen use: Gain-framed messages motivate beach-goers. Health Psychology, 18, 189–196. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2000). Rhetorical analysis within a pragma-dialectical framework: The case of R. J. Reynolds. Argumentation, 14, 293–305. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2001). Managing disagreement: Rhetorical analysis within a pragma-dialectical framework. Argumentation and Advocacy, 37, 150–157. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2005). Strategic manoeuvring. Studies in Communication Sciences, 23–34. Enschot-van Dijk, R. van, Hustinx, L., & Hoeken, H. (2003). The concept of argument quality in the elaboration likelihood model: A normative and empirical approach to Petty and Cacioppo’s “strong” and “weak” arguments. In F. H. van Eemeren, J. A. Blair, C. A. Willard, & A. F. Snoeck Henkemans (Eds.), Anyone who has a view: Theoretical contributions to the study of argumentation (pp. 319–335). Amsterdam: Kluwer. Hamilton, M. A., & Hunter, J. E. (1998). The effect of language intensity on receiver evaluations of message, source, and topic. In M. Allen & R. W. Preiss (Eds.), Persuasion: Advances through meta-analysis (pp. 99–138). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Hornikx, J., & O’Keefe, D. J. (in press). Adapting consumer advertising appeals to cultural values: A meta-analytic review of effects on persuasiveness and ad liking. Communication Yearbook.
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Hustinx, L., Enschot, R. van, & Hoeken, H. (2007). Argument quality in the elaboration likelihood model: An empirical study of strong and weak arguments in a persuasive message. In F. H. van Eemeren, A. J. Blair, Ch. Willard & B. Garssen (Eds.), Proceedings of the Sixth Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation (pp. 651–658). Amsterdam: Sic Sat. O’Keefe, D. J. (1997). Standpoint explicitness and persuasive effect: A meta-analytic review of the effects of varying conclusion articulation in persuasive messages. Argumentation and Advocacy, 34, 1–12. O’Keefe, D. J. (1998). Justification explicitness and persuasive effect: A meta-analytic review of the effects of varying support articulation in persuasive messages. Argumentation and Advocacy, 35, 61–75. O’Keefe, D. J. (1999). How to handle opposing arguments in persuasive messages: A meta-analytic review of the effects of one-sided and two-sided messages. Communication Yearbook, 22, 209–249. O’Keefe, D. J. (2002). The persuasive effects of variation in standpoint articulation. In F. H. van Eemeren (Ed.), Advances in pragma-dialectics (pp. 65–82). Amsterdam: Sic Sat. O’Keefe, D. J. (2003). Message properties, mediating states, and manipulation checks: Claims, evidence, and data analysis in experimental persuasive message effects research. Communication Theory, 13, 251–274. O’Keefe, D. J., & Jackson, S. (1995). Argument quality and persuasive effects: A review of current approaches. In S. Jackson (Ed.), Argumentation and values: Proceedings of the ninth Alta conference on argumentation (pp. 88–92). Annandale, VA: Speech Communication Association. O’Keefe, D. J., & Jensen, J. D. (2006). The advantages of compliance or the disadvantages of noncompliance? A meta-analytic review of the relative persuasive effectiveness of gain-framed and loss-framed messages. Communication Yearbook, 30, 1–43. Park, H. S., Levine, T. R., Westermann, C. Y. K., Orfgen, T., & Foregger, S. (2007). The effects of argument quality and involvement type on attitude formation and attitude change: A test of dual-process and social judgment predictions. Human Communication Research, 33, 81–102. Petty, R. E., Cacioppo, J. T., & Goldman, R. (1981). Personal involvement as a determinant of argument-based persuasion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41, 847–855. Rosenthal, R. (1991). Meta-analytic procedures for social research (2nd ed.). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Shadish, W. R., & Haddock, C. K. (1994). Combining estimates of effect size. In H. Cooper & L. V. Hedges (Eds.), The handbook of research synthesis (pp. 261–281). New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Smith-McLallen, A. (2005). Is it true? (When) does it matter? The roles of likelihood and desirability in argument judgments and attitudes (Doctoral dissertation, University of Connecticut, 2005). Dissertation Abstracts International, 66 (2006), 5144. (UMI No. AAT3187759) Sopory, P., & Dillard, J. P. (2002). The persuasive effects of metaphor: A meta-analysis. Human Communication Research, 28, 382–419. Witte, K., & Allen, M. (2000). A meta-analysis of fear appeals: Implications for effective public health programs. Health Education and Behavior, 27, 591–615.
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Notes 1. Information is available elsewhere concerning the details of computing effect sizes and mean effect sizes. For an introductory treatment of the former, see Rosenthal (1991); for a similar treatment of the latter, see Shadish and Haddock (1994). 2. The standardized mean difference (d) and the correlation (r) are interchangeable alternative expressions of an effect size. Formulas giving the relationship between d and r are widely available (e.g., Rosenthal, 1991, p. 20). 3. I put aside here some borderline cases, message variations for which it is not entirely plain whether one should think of the variation as involving repackaging of the same arguments or as presentation of different arguments. To my eye, such variations include fear appeals (see the review by Witte & Allen, 2000) and language intensity (see the review by Hamilton & Hunter, 1998). 4. Park et al. (2007, p. 94) report what they describe as an “informal meta-analysis” of just five earlier ELM studies; the average main effect of argument quality on persuasive outcomes is reported as r = .37, which corresponds to d = .80 or the difference between IQ scores of 100 and 112. This average does not reflect systematic retrieval of relevant literature, and a thorough examination of relevant research (of which there presumably is a good deal more than was reviewed by Park et al.) might well produce a smaller mean effect; still, this result does indicate that ELM argument quality variations are capable of yielding relatively large effects.
About the contributors
Corina Andone University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Corina Andone is a PhD student in the Department of Speech Communication, Argumentation Theory and Rhetoric. She is writing a dissertation in which she is concerned with the analysis and evaluation of responses to an accusation of inconsistency as confrontational ways of strategic manoeuvring as they occur in the argumentative activity type of a political interview. This research is part of the NWO-project Strategic manoeuvring in argumentative confrontations that started in 2005. Frans H. van Eemeren University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Frans H. van Eemeren is Professor of Speech Communication, Argumentation Theory and Rhetoric and director of the Research Master Rhetoric, Argumentation theory and Philosophy (RAP) and the research program Argumentation in Discourse. Together with Rob Grootendorst, he developed the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation, which he extended with Peter Houtlosser. He is editor-in-chief of the interdisciplinary journal Argumentation, editor of the book series Library of Argumentation (Springer) and Argumentation in Context (Benjamins), chairman of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation (ISSA) and Distinguished Scholar of the American National Communication Association (NCA). Among his key publications are: (with Grootendorst) Speech Acts in Argumentative Discussions (1984), Argumentation, Communication, and Fallacies (1992), A Systematic Theory of Argumentation (2004), (with Grootendorst, Jackson, and Jacobs) Reconstructing Argumentative Discourse (1993), (with Houtlosser) Dialectic and Rhetoric, (with Houtlosser and Snoeck Henkemans) Argumentative Indicators in Discourse (2007), (with Garssen and Meuffels) Fallacies and Judgments of Reasonableness (2009), and Strategic Maneuvering in Argumentative Discourse (to appear).
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Jeanne Fahnestock University of Maryland, United States of America Jeanne Fahnestock is a Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature and affiliate faculty in the Department of Communication at the University of Maryland. She is the author of Rhetorical Figures in Science (1999/2002) and coauthor of A Rhetoric of Argument (3rd edition, 2004). She has recently completed a manuscript on rhetorical stylistics. She has contributed chapters and published articles on rhetorical theory, argument, language analysis, and the rhetoric of science in journals including Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Written Communication, and College Composition and Communication. She served on the Board of Directors of the Rhetoric Society of America and was co-organizer of its conference in 2000. She has directed the Professional Writing Program and served as Director of University Writing Programs at the University of Maryland. Eveline Feteris University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Eveline T. Feteris is an Associate Professor in the Department of Speech Communication, Argumentation Theory and Rhetoric at the University of Amsterdam and director of the professional master Text and Communication. In her research she concentrates on legal argumentation and communication and applies insights from argumentation theory, rhetoric, logic, legal theory, and legal philosophy. She is a leading scholar in research of legal argumentation, having written survey studies of the field of legal argumentation such as Fundamentals of Legal Argumentation. A Critical Survey of Theories on the Justification of Legal Decisions (1999). She is the editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of the International Society for Legal and Social Philosophy (IVR) and a member of various advisory boards (Argumentation, Controversia) and has peer-reviewed papers, proposals, and abstracts for international journals, publishers, universities, governmental funding bodies, and conferences. Her current research project concerns a pragma-dialectical approach of legal argumentation. G. Thomas Goodnight University of Southern California, United States of America Dr. Goodnight is a Professor and Director of Doctoral Studies for the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California. His work on argumentation appears in journals such as Argumentation, Argumentation and Advocacy, Philosophy and Rhetoric, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, and the Quarterly Journal of Speech. Furthermore, he is a former editor of Argumentation and Advocacy and director of the Alta Conference on Argumentation. Presently, he is a fellow at the Huntington Library, the Program on the Rhetoric
About the contributors 299
of Inquiry at the University of Iowa, and the Program on the Public Diplomacy, USC. His studies concentrate on the theory and practice of advocacy, national debate, institutional practices, and social change. He is a Distinguished Scholar of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation. Peter Houtlosser University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Until his untimely death, Peter Houtlosser (1956–2008) was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Speech Communication, Argumentation Theory and Rhetoric at the University of Amsterdam. Together with Frans van Eemeren, he started the comprehensive research project aimed at doing justice to both the reasonableness and effectiveness of argumentative discourse by integrating insights from rhetoric in the (pragma)dialectical theory of argumentation. This resulted in more than 60 joint publications on the subject of “strategic maneuvering.” Among his publications are: (with van Eemeren) Dialectic and Rhetoric: The Warp and Woof of Argumentation Analysis (2002) and (with van Eemeren and Snoeck Henkemans) Argumentative Indicators in Discourse (2007). Houtlosser was Book Review Editor of the journal Argumentation. Together with van Eemeren, he organized in Amsterdam in 2006, 2007 and 2008 four international conferences devoted to different aspects of the study of strategic maneuvering. Isabela Ieţcu-Fairclough University of Bucharest, Romania Isabela Ieţcu-Fairclough is an Associate Professor and coordinator of the M.A. Programme in Discourse and Argumentation Studies. She has a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Lancaster and has published two books and many articles, including articles in Argumentation, Journal of Language and Politics, and Discourse and Society. In her books Dialogue, Argumentation and Ethical Perspective in the Essays of H.-R. Patapievici and Discourse Analysis and Argumentation Theory: Analytical Framework and Applications she combines argumentation theory and critical discourse analysis in the study of discursive aspects of post-communist transition, the ethical dimension of political and economic change and institutional reform in the political and educational fields. Her current research interests include discursive aspects of the unfolding economic crisis from the perspective of ‘moral economy’ and the public debate between creationism and science in the context of the rise of religious fundamentalism. Manfred Kienpointner University of Innsbruck, Austria Manfred Kienpointner is Professor of Linguistics. His main research areas are rhetoric and argumentation, contrastive linguistics, politeness theory, and structural
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semantics. He is a member of the consultation board of several scholarly journals (e.g. Argumentation, Pragmatics, Journal of Multicultural Discourses) and received the ISSA Award of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation in the year 1998. He worked one year with a Schrödinger scholarship at the University of Amsterdam (1990–1991) and taught two years as a guest professor at the Linguistics Department of the University of Vienna (2005–2007). Among his key publications are Argumentationsanalyse (1983), Alltagslogik (1992), and Vernünftig argumentieren (1996). Dima Mohammed University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Dima Mohammed is a PhD student of Argumentation Theory at the Department of Speech Communication, Argumentation Theory and Rhetoric. She holds a Research Master degree in Rhetoric, Argumentation theory and Philosophy from the University of Amsterdam, and a bachelor degree in English Language and Literature from Birzeit University, Palestine. Her research is part of the NWOproject Strategic manoeuvring in argumentative confrontations that started in 2005. Daniel J. O’Keefe Northwestern University, United States of America Daniel J. O’Keefe is Professor of Communication Studies at Northwestern University. His research concerns persuasion and argumentation. He has received the National Communication Association’s Charles Woolbert Research Award, its Golden Anniversary Monograph Award, its Rhetorical and Communication Theory Division’s Distinguished Scholar Award, and its Health Communication Division’s Article of the Year Award, the International Communication Association’s Best Article Award and its Division 1 John E. Hunter Meta-Analysis Award, the International Society for the Study of Argumentation’s Distinguished Scholar Award, the American Forensic Association’s Daniel Rohrer Memorial Research Award, and teaching awards from the Central States Communication Association and the University of Illinois. He is the author of Persuasion: Theory and research (Sage Publications). His research has appeared in Argumentation, Argumentation and Advocacy, Communication Monographs, Communication Theory, Communication Yearbook, Human Communication Research, Journal of Communication, Journal of Health Communication, and other journals. M. A. van Rees University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands M. A. van Rees retired in 2006 as an Associate Professor from the Department of Speech Communication, Argumentation Theory and Rhetoric. Currently she is
About the contributors 301
associated with the Department as a guest researcher. Her main research interests are speech act theory, conversation and discourse analysis, argumentation theory, and the interfaces between these various fields of enquiry. Among her key publications are: The Use Of Language in Conversation. An Introduction to Research into Conversational analysis (1992) and Dissociation in Argumentative Discussions. A Pragma-Dialectical Perspective (2009). Andrea Rocci University of Lugano, Switzerland Andrea Rocci (1970) is an Assistant Professor of Language Sciences at the Faculty of Communication Sciences of the University of Lugano (USI), where he teaches Discourse Analysis and Interpersonal Communication. His research interests lie at the intersection between semantics, discourse pragmatics, and the analysis of argumentation in professional and media genres, with a special focus on the discourse of finance. He wrote a book on the argumentative constraints encoded by the semantics of Italian modals (La modalità epistemica tra semantica e argomentazione, Milan 2005) and several papers on the relationship between semantics, discourse structure and argumentation. He is currently directing a Swiss National Foundation research project on predictions and modality in the discourse of economic-financial newspapers. Rocci has been executive editor of the journal Studies in Communication Sciences (2003–2006) and currently serves as vice-president in the Swiss Association for Applied Linguistics (VALS-ASLA). A. Francisca Snoeck Henkemans University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands A. Francisca Snoeck Henkemans is an Associate Professor in the Department of Speech Communication, Argumentation Theory and Rhetoric and a member of the research programme Argumentation and Discourse. She is director of the master’s programme Discourse and Argumentation Studies Amsterdam (DASA). She is a member of the editorial board of the journal Informal Logic and a referee for the journal Argumentation. Among Snoeck Henkemans’s key publications are: Analysing Complex Argumentation (1992), (with van Eemeren, Grootendorst and others) Fundamentals of Argumentation Theory (1996), and (with van Eemeren and Houtlosser) Argumentative Indicators in Discourse (2007). Christopher W. Tindale University of Windsor, Canada Christopher W. Tindale is Professor of Philosophy and a fellow of the Centre for Research in Reasoning, Argumentation, and Rhetoric. He is co-editor of the journal Informal Logic and sits on several other editorial boards. Among his key publications are: (with Groarke) Good Reasoning Matters (1989/4th ed. 2008),
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Acts of Arguing (SUNY, 1999), Rhetorical Argumentation (2004), Fallacies and Argument Appraisal (2007), and Reason’s Dark Champions (2009). Yvon Tonnard University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Yvon Tonnard is a PhD student in the Department of Speech Communication, Argumentation Theory and Rhetoric of the University of Amsterdam. She studied Dutch language and literature (specialization Speech Communication) at the same university. In her dissertation, she deals with the question of how one-issue politicians manoeuvre strategically to get a specific standpoint on the table in Dutch Parliament by choosing specific presentational means. This research is part of the NWO-project Strategic manoeuvring in argumentative confrontations that started in 2005. David Zarefsky Northwestern University, United States of America David Zarefsky is the Owen L. Coon Professor of Communication Studies. His research focuses especially on political argumentation within the context of U.S. public discourse, both historical and contemporary. His books include President Johnson’s War on Poverty: Rhetoric and History (1986) and Lincoln, Douglas, and Slavery: In the Crucible of Public Debate (1990), as well as anthologies of speeches and textbooks in argumentation and in public speaking. He edited the volumes Sizing Up Rhetoric (2008) and Rhetorical Movement: Essays in Honor of Leland M. Griffin (1993). Zarefsky is a former president of both the National Communication Association and the Rhetoric Society of America, and he has been recognized as a Distinguished Scholar by NCA and the International Society for the Study of Argumentation.
Index A activity type 7–10, 12, 14–20, 115, 120, 126–127, 135–137, 171–178, 183, 186–187, 208, 257, 260–261, 265, 271–272 adherence 47, 51–53, 103, 106, 123, 146 adjudication 8–10, 14, 132, 135–137, 144, 208 Agricola 3–4, 197 analytic overview 1, 11, 19, 176–177, 183 analytically relevant move 11, 159, 165, 178–182, 185, 187 Andone, C. 10 Anscombre, J. C. 7, 194 antimetabole 49, 205, 236 antithesis 124, 205, 209, 236 aporia 198–199 argument quality 20, 90, 293 argumentation stage 5–6, 11, 14, 17, 26, 33–37, 43–45, 50, 103, 248–250, 260 argumentative activity type 7–10, 12, 14– 20, 115, 120, 126, 135–137, 171–178, 183, 186–187, 208, 257, 260–261, 265, 271–272 confrontation 184–185, 267–269, 272 argumentum ad baculum 63, 65, 72, 265 ad hominem 63, 67–69, 137, 139, 141, 253 ad misericordiam 63, 69–71 ad verecundiam 16 Aristotle 2–3, 15, 48, 55, 66, 193, 195–196, 199, 262, 273 audience demand 6–7, 41–43, 49–50, 121, 125, 133, 162, 206, 257, 291
B Bakhtin, M. 47, 194, 266–267 Beetham, D. 131, 134–135, 139, 143–144 Blair, C. L. 175–176, 182, 185 Boethius 3 Bourdieu, P. 131–132, 145–146 burden of proof 8, 17, 28, 78, 80, 82, 84, 87, 90, 94–103, 106, 108, 252–253 evasion of 252–253 Bush, G. W. 29, 117, 119–121, 123–124, 196–197, 205–206, 218 Bush, H. W. 70, 117, 124 C Cacioppo, J. T. 293 Cicero 3, 193, 196, 199 Clark, H. H. 233, 247 coherence 206 commitment set 12, 19 communicative function 233– 234 communion 6, 43, 49–50, 124 conciliatio 7, 13, 203 concluding stage 5, 26, 37, 43, 173, 199, 250 confrontation stage 5, 6, 11, 26–30, 42–43, 50, 153, 158–161, 163–166, 179–180, 184–185, 223–224, 226–227, 242, 248, 250, 253–254, 260, 270–274 Conley, P. H. 117 convergence 44 horizontal 7 vertical 7 critical discussion 1–2, 5, 7–8, 10–11, 14–15, 17, 25–30, 37, 44, 46, 61, 77, 94–95, 128, 132, 153, 158–161, 164–166, 173–174, 177–181, 187, 194, 211–212, 223,
248, 254, 258–259, 265, 267, 273–274, 288 cultural values 291–294 adapting appeals to 291–292 D definitio 196–197 deliberation 132, 147–148 dialectics 2–5, 25–26, 37–38, 42–43 46–51, 95–98, 108, 131–136, 147–149, 191–192, 196–199 dialectical profile 11–12, 19, 153, 159–160, 178–182, 184–187, 226–227, 231 dialogism 266–270, 273, 278 dialogic argument 47–48, 54, 208 discourse analysis 193–195, 198, 202–204, 211 dissociation 25–38 distributio 206 doctor-patient communication 85–91 Ducrot, O. 7, 194 E Eemeren, F. H. van 1–20, 25–26, 41–45, 50–51, 54, 56, 61–63, 77, 87, 103, 107, 121, 125, 131, 136, 154–155, 157–161, 171, 173, 177–179, 191–192, 194, 196, 198, 200, 203, 207–208, 210–211, 223–224, 226, 228, 231–232, 241, 249–250, 257, 263, 267, 272, 274, 277, 285, 288, 291 effect size 286–287, 289–290, 292 effectiveness 4–5, 19–20, 25–26, 37–38, 42–44, 50–51, 103, 161, 171, 241 erotema 198
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F Fahnestock, J. 7, 49, 52, 191–215 Fairclough, N. 194 fallacy 2, 13–19, 44–45, 49, 61–62, 69–71, 120, 253–254, 265 Farrell, T. B. 118 Fauconnier, G. 275 felicity condition 243 Feteris, E. T. 93–113 figure of speech 7, 45, 49, 52–53, 124–128, 192–197, 199–201, 203–207, 211, 236, 242, 258–259 Foss, S. K. 48 Fowler, R. 194, 202 framing 122–123, 141–142, 224, 257–279, 288–289 freedom of speech 61– 67, 69, 72–74 G Goffman, E. 209, 260–261 Goodnight, G. T. 76–91, 115, 122 Greenwood, T. 80, 82 Grice, H. P. 7, 193, 245 Griffin, C. L. 48 Griffin, L. M. 117 Grootendorst, R. 1, 11, 14, 18, 25–26, 54, 62, 131, 154–155, 157–158, 171, 177–179, 194, 223–224, 226, 231–232, 274, 277 H Habermas, J. 131, 134 Halliday, M. A. K. 194, 198, 202–204, 206, 258 Hamblin, C. L. 15 horizontal convergence see convergence, horizontal Houtlosser, P. 1–20, 25, 41–45, 50–51, 56, 61–63, 77, 87, 103, 107, 121, 125, 131, 136, 159–161, 171, 173, 178–179, 191–192, 198, 200, 203, 207–208, 210–211, 223–224, 231–233, 241, 249– 250, 257, 263, 265, 267, 272, 276, 285, 288, 291
I Ieţcu-Fairclough, I. 131–149 Ilie, C. 266 inconsistency 17–18, 30, 35–36, 38, 140, 153–166, 182–186, 243–246 informal logic 46, 51 initial situation 10, 173–174 institutional aim 172–174, 178, 187, 232–233 logic 79–82, 85, 87, 90 rule 177–178, 181–182, 185–187, 224–225 institutionalised argumentative practice 7–8, 12, 171–174, 177–178, 181, 186 interaction field 260, 265–267, 271–272 scheme 260, 271–272 invitational rhetoric 48 J Jackson, S. 15, 178, 293 Jacobs, S. 5, 178 Johnson, R. H. 51 Johnstone Jr, H. 46 justification 78, 85, 93–108, 131–135, 141–142, 148–149 K Kauffeld, F. 6, 155, 159 Kekes, J. 116 Kennedy-Nixon debate 125– 128, 209–210 Kienpointner, M. 15, 61–74 Krabbe, E. C. W. 4, 11 Kraus, S. 125 krités 273–274, 279 Kuhn, T. S. 117 L Lanham, R. A. 247 Leech, G. 194, 207 Leeman, A. D. 4 Leff, M. 2, 4, 198, 207 legal argumentation 93–108 legitimacy 14, 16–17, 65–66, 80–81, 89, 131–149 legitimation strategies 89, 131–149
Levinson, C. S. 69, 261 literary stylistics 194, 202, 211 M Mack, P. 3 Mann, W. C. 261, 264–265 mediation 8–10, 136, 208 Meerhoff, C. G. 3 metaphor 71, 204, 209, 258– 259, 263–264, 290 Mohammed, D. 10, 65, 158–159, 171–187 N negotiation 8–10, 43, 136, 140, 208, 265 North, D. C. 79 O obiter dictum 106–107 O’Keefe, D.J. 4, 285–294 Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. 3, 6–7, 25–26, 41–43, 45–47, 49, 51–54, 69, 123–124, 192, 199, 201, 247, 258, 263 opening stage 5–6, 17, 26, 30–33, 43, 55, 140, 161, 248, 264 outcome 9–11, 19, 37, 41, 43, 48–49, 80, 138, 159, 162, 166, 173, 185–186 P parameter 11–13, 19, 115 parliamentary debate 225 Perelman, Ch. 3, 6–7, 25–26, 41–43, 45–47, 49, 51–54, 69, 123–124, 192, 199, 201, 247, 258, 263 persuasive effect 61, 193, 201, 211, 259, 285–294 Petty, R. E. 293 pharmaceutical advertising 77–91 Plato 2–3, 23, 47–48, 55 political argumentation 67–69, 72–73, 115–128, 131–149, 164–166 field 131–149 interview 164–166
polyphony 194, 257–279 polyptoton 199–200 praeteritio 53, 241–254 pragma-dialectics 1–20, 42, 44, 56, 61–62, 77–78, 84, 87, 93–108, 115–116, 118, 131–132, 153–154, 158–161, 171–187, 193, 197, 199, 206, 208, 211–212, 223, 226, 231, 241, 257, 259, 263, 265, 267, 273, 288 precedent 99–100, 102, 104–106 presence 43, 45, 56, 124, 263–264 presentational devices 6–7, 43, 45, 50, 63, 94, 103–104, 106–107, 162– 163, 166, 178, 187, 192–193, 198–199, 201–211, 258–259, 264–265, 288, 292 possibilities 13, 224–237 Prime Minister’s Question Time 171–187 propositional content 62, 155, 157, 165, 177, 231, 233–235, 258–259, 264–265, 272 public debate 8–10, 14, 64–69, 89 deliberation 140, 147–148 justification 131–132, 134–135, 138, 142, 148 Q Quintilian 3, 193, 196, 198, 201 R reasonableness 4–5, 8, 15, 19, 25–26, 37–38, 41, 43–44, 51–55, 77–91, 93, 95, 108, 131–133, 135, 145, 171–173, 178, 197, 223, 228, 244, 252, 254 Reboul, O. 7, 52 reconstruction 1–2, 11, 19, 25, 34, 42, 84, 94–100, 106–108, 120, 125–127, 143, 155, 160–161, 163–166, 173, 175–181, 185,
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187, 267, 271–272, 274–275, 277–278 Rees, M. A. van 25–38, 55 reformulation 1, 162–163, 168–169, 180, 221, 235–236 register 204–205, 258 reticence 242, 248 rhetoric 2–20, 25–38, 41–56, 93–108, 131–166, 191–212, 241–254, 257–279 Rhetorica ad Herennium 43, 193, 195–196, 206, 242, 246 rhetorical figure 7, 45, 49, 52–53, 124–128, 192–197, 199–201, 203–207, 211, 236, 242, 258–259 question 139, 144, 165, 198, 203, 234–236 strategy 44, 103–104, 106–107, 257 stylistics 7, 191–212 Rigotti, E. 6, 258, 260–261, 264–265, 267, 271 Rocci, A. 7, 257–279 rogatio 198 S Sauter-Sachs, S. 272, 278 Schulz, P. J. 8, 197 Searle, J. 154, 193, 264 Shell advertorial 198–203, 205, 207, 211 Snoeck Henkemans, A. F. 179, 194, 198, 232, 234–235, 238, 241–254, 267 Sophists 2–3, 48, 193 speech act 1, 6, 26, 77, 153–160, 181–182, 185, 194, 204, 206, 231, 233–234, 237, 243–244, 247–248, 253, 259, 264–265, 270, 272, 274 standpoint 4–5, 10, 13, 15, 17, 25, 27–38, 43, 47, 62, 66, 71, 85, 87, 94–96, 116, 118, 120, 123, 126–127, 133, 137, 139–141, 143, 147–148, 153, 160, 162–163,
165–166, 174–177, 179– 182, 184–185, 187, 221–224, 227–237, 243–244, 249–253, 259–260, 264–265, 267, 270, 272, 274–279 starting point 5, 8–10, 12, 17– 18, 30–34, 36, 38, 43, 93–107, 132, 161, 174, 248–249 Stoics 55 strategic maneuvering aspect of 5–7, 19, 103, 107, 162–163, 181–182, 185, 225 derailment of 13–18, 45, 49, 61, 71, 73, 120, 126–127, 253–254 strategy to silence an opponent 61–74 T Tannen, D. 66, 69, 260–261, 266 Tindale, Ch. W. 5, 41–56, 198 topical potential 5–7, 13, 19, 43, 50, 63, 94, 98, 103–108, 121, 125, 141–142, 186, 211, 224–233, 241, 263 Toulmin, S. E. 3, 46 tu quoque 17–18, 253 U universal audience 52–53 V vertical convergence see convergence, vertical W Walton, D. N. 11, 65, 67, 69–72, 125, 276 Wenzel, J. W. 4, 23 Westermann, C. Y. K. 293, 295 Z Zarefsky, D. 2, 8, 26–27, 62, 69, 115–128, 133, 137, 195–197 zeugma 201, 207
