Prototypical Argumentative Patterns


Book Description

Prototypical Argumentative Patterns reports about a research project started at the University of Amsterdam in 2012. In this project distinctive argumentative patterns have been identified in argumentative discourse in the political, the legal and the medical domain. These patterns consist of constellations of argumentative moves in which, in order to deal with a particular kind of difference of opinion, in defence of a particular type of standpoint, a particular argument scheme or combination of argument schemes is used in a particular kind of argumentation structure. The composition of these prototypical argumentative patterns can be explained by referring to the institutional characteristics of the communicative activity types in which they occur. By exploring the relationship between argumentative discourse and the institutional context, Frans van Eemeren, Bart Garssen, Corina Andone, Eveline Feteris and Francisca Snoeck Henkemans have provided a new and illuminating perspective on the context-dependency of argumentative discourse.




Argumentation Theory: A Pragma-Dialectical Perspective


Book Description

The book offers a compact but comprehensive introductory overview of the crucial components of argumentation theory. In presenting this overview, argumentation is consistently approached from a pragma-dialectical perspective by viewing it pragmatically as a goal-directed communicative activity and dialectically as part of a regulated critical exchange aimed at resolving a difference of opinion. As a result, the book also systematically explains how the constitutive parts of the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation, which are discussed in a number of separate publications, hang together. The following crucial topics are discussed: (1) argumentation theory as a discipline; (2) the meta-theoretical principles of pragma-dialectics; (3) the model of a critical discussion aimed at resolving a difference of opinion; (4) fallacies as violations of a code of conduct for reasonable argumentative discourse; (5) descriptive research of argumentative reality; (6) analysis as theoretically-motivated reconstruction; (7) strategic manoeuvring aimed at combining achieving effectiveness with maintaining reasonableness; (8) the conventionalization of argumentative practices; (9) prototypical argumentative patterns; (10) pragma-dialectics amidst other approaches. Argumentation Theory: A Pragma-Dialectical Perspective is clearly written and makes argumentation theory understandable to all scholars and advanced students interested in argumentation research.




Argumentation in Actual Practice


Book Description

Argumentation in Actual Practice contains a collection of topical studies about argumentative discourse in context written by argumentation scholars from a diversity of academic backgrounds. Some contributions provide general perspectives, other contributions deal with specific issues, particular types of argumentative discourse or individual argumentative speech events. The contexts in which argumentation is examined vary from politics and the media to medical, juridical, educational, commercial or military contexts, a specific academic discipline, a special issue or pertain to all kinds of contextualised argumentative discourse. The issues discussed include the interpretation and analysis of argumentation, strategic manoeuvring, argument schemes, the stock issues, the fallacies, the principle of charity and the persuasiveness of argumentative discourse. A common feature is that they are all empirically-oriented and that virtually all of them are strongly concerned with an adequate understanding of contextualised argumentative discourse and the factors that may increase or decrease its reasonableness and effectiveness.




Fundamentals of Legal Argumentation


Book Description

This book is an updated and revised edition of Fundamentals of Legal Argumentation published in 1999. It discusses new developments that have taken place in the past 15 years in research of legal argumentation, legal justification and legal interpretation, as well as the implications of these new developments for the theory of legal argumentation. Almost every chapter has been revised and updated, and the chapters include discussions of recent studies, major additions on topical issues, new perspectives, and new developments in several theoretical areas. Examples of these additions are discussions of recent developments in such areas as Habermas' theory, MacCormick's theory, Alexy's theory, Artificial Intelligence and law, and the pragma-dialectical theory of legal argumentation. Furthermore it provides an extensive and systematic overview of approaches and studies of legal argumentation in the context of legal justification in various legal systems and countries that have been important for the development of research of legal argumentation. The book contains a discussion of influential theories that conceive the law and legal justification as argumentative activity. From different disciplinary and theoretical angles it addresses such topics as the institutional characteristics of the law and the relation between general standards for moral discussions and legal standards such as the Rule of Law. It discusses patterns of legal justification in the context of different types of problems in the application of the law and it describes rules for rational legal discussions. The combination of the sound basis of the first edition and the discussions of new developments make this new edition an up-to-date and comprehensive survey of the various theoretical influences which have informed the study of legal argumentation. It discusses salient backgrounds to this field as well as major approaches and trends in the contemporary research. It surveys the relevant theoretical factors both from various continental law traditions and common law countries.




Reflections on Theoretical Issues in Argumentation Theory


Book Description

This volume presents a selection of papers reflecting key theoretical issues in argumentation theory. Its six sections are devoted to specific themes, including the analysis and evaluation of argumentation, argument schemes and the contextual embedding of argumentation. The section on general perspectives on argumentation discusses the trends of empiricalization, contextualization and formalization, offers descriptions of the analytical and evaluative tools of informal logic, and highlights selected principles that argumentation theorists do and do not agree upon. In turn, the section on linguistic approaches to argumentation focuses on the problem of distinguishing between explanation and argument, while also elaborating on the role of verbal indicators of argument schemes. All essays included in this volume point out notable recent developments in the study of argumentation.




Reasonableness and Effectiveness in Argumentative Discourse


Book Description

This volume presents 50 contributions on the themes of reasonableness and effectiveness and their connections, which are central issues in argumentation theory. It discusses van Eemeren’s views on the study of argumentation; the approach to argumentation adopted in pragma-dialectics; pragma-dialectical perspectives on the dialectical and pragmatic dimensions of argumentative discourse; the notion of strategic maneuvering; the pragma-dialectical method of analyzing argumentative discourse; the treatment of fallacies as violations of rules for critical discussion; pragma-dialectical views on context, the role of logic, verbal indicators of argumentative moves and argument schemes; and the process of writing and rewriting argumentative texts. The pragma-dialectical quantitative approach to empirical research on argumentative discourse is illustrated by reporting on selected, illustrative experimental studies, as well as qualitative studies of historical cases.




Persuasion in Specialized Discourse


Book Description

The volume aims to advance understanding of argumentative practices in different communicative contexts, with special regard for those with heightened public resonance: politics, media, and public debate in general. Furthermore, it intends to explore the linguistic aspects of argumentation, including both explicit codification, with the related issue of indicators, and the activation of implicit meanings. Bringing together different paradigms to account for the relations between contextual factors and discourse realizations, the contributions articulate around three foci, placing emphasis on one or more of them: the communicative purpose within a given genre or activity type; the argumentative and linguistic features of the investigated discourses, among which prototypical patterns, argumentative styles, and implicit meanings; the assessment of argumentation quality and strategies to cope with illegitimate practices.




Argumentative Style


Book Description

Argumentative Style discusses the various ways in which the defence of a standpoint is given shape in argumentative discourse. In this innovative study the new notion – ‘argumentative style’ – introduced for this purpose is situated in the theoretical framework of the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation. This means that the choices involved in utilising a particular argumentative style do not only concern the presentational dimension, but also the topical selection and the audience adaptation of the strategic manoeuvring taking place in the discourse. In identifying the functional variety of the argumentative styles utilised in the political, the diplomatic, the legal, the facilitatory, the academic, and the medical domain, the point of departure is that these argumentative styles manifest themselves in the discourse in the argumentative moves that are made, the dialectical routes that are chosen and the strategic considerations that are brought to bear.




The Quest for Argumentative Equivalence


Book Description

What are the implications of strategic manoeuvring for the activity of the simultaneous interpreter? This is the main question addressed in The Quest for Argumentative Equivalence. Based on the analysis of a multilingual comparable corpus named ARGO, the book investigates political argumentation with an eye to its reformulation by interpreters. After reporting and discussing a series of case studies illustrating interpreters’ problems in the political context, the study reconstructs the prototypical argumentative patterns used by Obama, Cameron, Sarkozy and Hollande not only in a hermeneutical perspective, but also considering interpreters’ need to reproduce them into a foreign language. Situated at the intersection of Argumentation Theory and Interpreting Studies, the book provides a contribution to the descriptive study of political argumentation, highlighting the presence of interpreters as a key contextual variable in political communication and deepening the study of the interlinguistic and translational implications of the act of arguing.




Responding to Questions at Press Conferences


Book Description

Responding to Questions at Press Conferences makes clear how the spokespersons at China’s diplomatic press conferences maneuver strategically in defining the issues in the empirical counterpart of the confrontation stage when responding to the journalists’ questions and how this confrontational maneuvering is meant to be instrumental in convincing the intended audience. The detailed and systematic analysis of the various modes of confrontational maneuvering adopted by the spokespersons elucidate how China’s recently established “progressive” diplomatic style is shaped by its spokespersons’ argumentative discourse.