ISSA Proceedings 2014 ~ A Plea For A Linguistic Distinction Between Explanation And Argument

• by: Thierry Herman - EFLE & Institute of Language Sciences and Communication, Universities of Lausanne & Neuchâtel, Switzerland

Abstract: There is no clear consensus about a difference between explanation and argument. After having explained why traditional points of view of informal logic raise a problem, I’ll argue for a linguistic point of view on this question and show how rhetorical strategic moves can exploit the blurry frontier between explanation and argumentation. A third category seems necessary to introduce – “apparent explanation” – and two French connectives – “car” and “parce que” – will be used to describe differences.
Keywords: Explanation, argument, informal logic, linguistics, connectives, car, parce que.

1. Introduction
The aim of this paper is to highlight some linguistic insights on the difference between explanation and argument in order to make apparent some rhetorical strategic moves that exploit the blurry frontier between both them. In order to achieve that objective, French connectives “car” and “parce que” will be used at the end of the paper – but the main ideas should remain clear for non-French speakers.

I would like here to offer a slightly new point of view on a very old and common problem: how to distinguish between explanation and argumentation? I will offer here a linguist’s point of view on this problem, which is often tackled by philosophers and critical thinkers. After having explained the linguistic clues I use to distinguish explanation and argument, I will discuss rhetorical strategies that exploit the appearance of an explanation to fulfil argumentative purposes. During this examination, I will need to speak about the French connectives “car” and “parce que”, but non-French speakers will be able to understand what I would like to underline.
Broadly speaking, two points of view on a difference between explanation and argumentation can be found in the literature. The first one comes from a philosophical side – mainly informal logic and critical thinking – and a second one comes from a linguistic side, which is perhaps less known outside French tradition on argumentation. There are problems within each of these sides: the old issue of differences between explanation and argumentation is still not resolved. Recently, McKeon (2013) argued for example that explanations should be considered as arguments. On the other side, Trudy Govier (Govier, 2005) has written that explanation and arguments are different, but some explanations can nevertheless be seen as arguments within different contexts.

Now the French linguist Jean-Michel Adam considers that explanations and arguments have different patterns, called sequences. He argued in a seminal book that argumentative sequence (inspired from Toulmin’s model) differs from an explicative sequence by the explicit presence of a problem and a solution. Thus, example 1 must be seen as an explanation:
(1) Why should I stop smoking ? Because, as soon as I run, I have difficulties to breathe.

An explanation, according to Adam (Adam, 2011), ties together four “propositions” (not in a logical sense): P. exp. 0: Introduction; P. exp 1: Problem or Question (Why P ? How P?); P. exp 2: Solution or Answer (Because Q) and P. exp. 3: Conclusion – Evaluation. The presence of an explicit question and its immediate answer introduced by because seems to be the criteria to distinguish explanation and argumentation. But the example (2) would probably be seen as an argumentative move in Adam’s viewpoint.

(2) I should stop smoking, because as soon as I run, I have difficulties to breathe.

The problem of these two similar examples is that a conclusion can be an explanandum and that premises can function as an explanans, just because of the presence of a why-question. This sudden change of nature of the sequence seems unsatisfactory, since the semantic point of view within these clauses seems untouched. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2014 – Western And Russian Media Coverage Of The Ukrainian Crisis: An Emotional Commitment Or Bias?

• by: Vadim Golubev - Department of English for the Faculty of Journalism, St. Petersburg State University, Russia

Abstract: During an international conflict, even otherwise objective journalists frequently display a strong emotional commitment to their government’s stance in the crisis. This commitment may cloud rational judgment, turning journalism into propaganda. A journalist’s choice to abandon truth-seeking in favor of persuasion makes the journalist a party to the conflict and transforms a critical discussion, based on a cooperative approach, into a persuasion dialogue, based on an adversarial approach.
Keywords: emotion, fallacy, journalism, persuasion, propaganda, reason.

1. Introduction
During an international conflict, even otherwise objective journalists frequently display a strong emotional commitment to the stance of their own country in the crisis. This commitment may cloud rational judgment, turning journalism into propaganda. The paper is an attempt to show that if a journalist chooses to abandon truth-seeking in favor of persuasion as his primary communication objective he immediately becomes a party to the conflict he is supposed to be observing impartially. In the end, such a journalist can turn into a propagandist. Abandoning truth-seeking transforms a critical discussion, based on a cooperative approach, into a persuasion dialogue, based on an adversarial approach. The persuasion dialogue, in turn, can further escalate a quarrel.
To provide answers as to how this transformation occurs in global journalism, this paper examines interplay between propaganda and journalism by delineating persuasion and truth-seeking in American and Russian media coverage of the Ukrainian crisis. The paper seeks to examine American and Russian media coverage of the Ukrainian crisis and show the nature of propaganda as fallacious emotional appeals, defined as those that supplant rational appeals.

2. Discussion
Propaganda is an elusive topic to describe using verifiable criteria. The challenge is all the more fascinating given that we are currently experiencing an all-out propaganda war between Russia and the West in a completely new context. Unlike the Second World War, this is a local conflict, and unlike during the Cold War, people on both sides have full access to the other side’s media discourse if they so wish (the question is how many people wish to make that effort rather than stay within the comfort zone of their own country’s media narrative – a condition for propaganda to thrive). Richard Alan Nelson defines propaganda as follows:
Propaganda is neutrally defined as a systematic form of purposeful persuasion that attempts to influence the emotions, attitudes, opinions, and actions of specified target audiences for ideological, political or commercial purposes through the controlled transmission of one-sided messages (which may or may not be factual) via mass and direct media channels. (Nelson, 1996, pp. 232–233)

Another interpretation is that propagandists present their facts selectively (thus possibly lying by omission) and use loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented (Denish, 2012, p.1). Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2014 ~ Dialogue Types And Argumentative Behaviors

• by: Ioana A. Cionea - Department of Communication, University of Oklahoma, USA & Dale Hample - Department of Communication, University of Maryland, USA

Abstract: Empirical tests of the dialogue types developed by informal logicians have been conducted recently. In this paper, we further advance this line of research by connecting dialogue types with several well-established measures in argumentation research: argument frames, argument beliefs, argument competence, argumentativeness, and verbal aggressiveness. Results indicate participants prefer the persuasive dialogue to the other types, and dialogues are well predicted by argument competence as well as the pro-social component of verbal aggressiveness.

Keywords: dialogue types, interpersonal arguments, Walton.

1. Introduction
The study of dialogues as normative frameworks has primarily been undertaken by informal logicians (e.g., Walton, 1998; Walton & Krabbe, 1995). Walton (1998) proposed a new approach to studying propositional commitments and turn-taking moves that occur during a dialogue. He argued that the concept of dialogue must be tailored so that it can accommodate (and explain) how individuals argue in their everyday exchanges. It should prescribe how arguments ought to occur and develop and it should provide criteria for assessing whether an argument has been used correctly (Walton, 1998).

Walton and Krabbe (1995) and Walton (1998) developed and detailed six main types of dialogues: persuasion, inquiry, information seeking, negotiation, deliberation and eristic. These dialogues differ depending on the initial situation that sparks argumentation and the main goal of engaging in a specific type. Persuasion stems from an open conflict that parties seek to resolve. Negotiation and the eristic dialogue also stem from an open conflict, but their goals are different; parties seek a practical settlement in a negotiation but only a provisional accommodation in an eristic dialogue. Inquiry and deliberation both stem from an open problem but differ in their main goal: inquiry seeks a stable resolution, whereas deliberation seeks a practical settlement. Finally, information seeking stems from an unsatisfactory spread of information and seeks to reach a stable resolution of the situation[i].

There is little research that examines these dialogues empirically. Cionea (2011) made a case that examining these dialogue types in interpersonal relationships can enhance our understanding of how, when, or why people employ each dialogue in their argumentative exchanges. Later, Cionea (2013) developed self-report measurement scales and tested four of the dialogues in the context of romantic relationships. In this paper, we propose developing measurement scales for the remaining two dialogue types and examining the associations (if any) that dialogue types may have with other argumentation variables. In addition, we propose that a seventh dialogue type may be feasibly added to the list developed by Walton (1998) and Walton and Krabbe (1995): information giving. Dialogues are a give and take process in which arguers seek information but also give information to the other party. Thus, we conceptualize this dialogue type as the reverse of information seeking; instead of trying to seek information from the other person, the arguer offers information to the other person. The goal of the dialogue and the initial situation that triggers it are the same as for information seeking.

In what follows we present the results of two studies examining dialogues as individual preferences that people tend to adopt in their arguments. We describe the goals of each study, the method we have employed, and our results. We conclude with a general discussion of what our research unveils about dialogue types and the potential future directions in which this line of research can be expanded.

2. Study 1
The goal of this study was to develop measures for the two dialogue types (inquiry and deliberation) not previously examined by Cionea (2013) and for the dialogue type that we propose should be added – information giving. To accomplish this goal, we created items for these three dialogues and assessed their reliability and factor structure.

2.1 Participants
Participants in the study were 189 individuals recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk in the United States. One hundred and twenty one participants were male and 68 were female, with ages between 18 and 62 years old (M = 31.66, SD = 10.41). Participants were mostly White (n = 134), followed by Asian (n = 26), African American (n = 13), Hispanic and/or Latino/Latina (n = 11), and other ethnicities or combinations of the previous ones. Participants came from all regions of the United States, with the highest numbers from the Pacific (n = 42), Middle (n = 32) and South Atlantic (n = 34) regions. Most participants had a college degree (n = 59) or some college (n = 69).

2.2 Procedures
Participants completed an online questionnaire in which they provided consent and demographic information. They were then asked to think about what they do when they discuss, argue, or have any dialogue with another person and rate statements measuring dialogue types on a scale from 0 (absolute disagreement) to 100 (absolute agreement). Participants were compensated 50 US cents for their participation. The research was approved by the Institutional Review Board at a West South Central university in the United States.

2.3 Measures
Persuasion, negotiation, information seeking, and the eristic dialogue were measured with items developed by Cionea (2013). Persuasion dialogue was measured with six items (e.g., “I try to explain my position to the other person” or “I try to give the other person reasons for my position”), as was the negotiation dialogue (e.g., “I try to make a deal with the other person” or “I try to come up with an agreement that we can both live with”). Information seeking dialogue was measured with four items, such as “I try to find out more information from the other person” and “I try to ask the other person for the whole story.” The eristic dialogue was measured with six items, too (e.g., “I try to vent” or “I try to take the opposite position from the other person”).

Seven items for inquiry and seven items for deliberation were developed for this study. Examples include “I try to decide with the other person how we should proceed,” “I try to analyze with the other person the consequences of our plan(s),” and “I try to weigh the options with the other person” for deliberation and “I try to find the truth,” “I try to insist that we draw logical conclusions” and “I try to analyze how we move from facts to the conclusion(s)” for inquiry. Four items for information giving were rephrased from the items for information seeking (e.g., “I try to let the other person know more information” or “I try to offer the other person the whole story”). Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2014 ~ On The Benefits Of Applying Argumentation Theory To Research On The Simultaneous Interpretation Of Political Speeches

• by: Emanuele Brambilla - Department of Legal, Language, Interpreting and Translation Studies (IUSLIT), University of Trieste, Italy

Abstract: Even though interpreting is to a great extent about the interlinguistic reproduction of arguments, argumentation theory is almost completely overlooked by interpreting studies, which partly explains the frequent production of pragmatically inappropriate interpreted texts. Against the theoretical gap, the paper puts forward a descriptive argumentation approach to political speeches with a view to their simultaneous interpretation, in the attempt to make the case for a systematic contribution of argumentation studies to interpretation theory and training.
Keywords: argumentative equivalence, simultaneous interpreting, source texts (STs), strategic manoeuvring.

1. Introduction
The omnipresence of argumentation in everyday verbal communication is the hinge of argumentation studies (van Eemeren et al., 1996, pp. 1-2) and the main reason for their flourishing, from the classical period to a renewed spate of interest last century. What is probably less evident and certainly less studied is the fact that the socio-professional needs of the globalised world repeatedly demand that argumentation be reproduced in another language to cater for interlinguistic communication needs. In this respect, the present paper analyses how argumentation is and should be reproduced in interlinguistic settings requiring the interpreting service.

Argumentation is “the dominant mode of discourse in many interpreted situations” (Marzocchi, 1997, p. 182) and interpretation consequently implies a continuous argumentative interaction, thereby requiring at least an intuitive knowledge of the appropriate contextual use of arguments on the part of interpreters (Marzocchi, 1997, p. 184). Notably, when the predominant focus of a communicative situation is on the discursive attempt to resolve a difference of opinion, the quality of the interpreter’s performance is assessed on the basis of his/her ability to convey the argumentative purpose of the original text, “possibly to the detriment of other kinds of equivalence or of received ideas concerning fidelity” (Marzocchi, 1997, p. 183). This particularly holds true for political argumentation, in which the systematic and subtle implementation of strategic manoeuvring (Zarefsky, 2009, p. 115) to overcome a conflict between different lines of action demands specific equivalence standards not only concerning the content of the message but also its persuasive and ethotic dimensions, which are less important in other communicative events such as specialist conferences.

However, despite the significant development of argumentation studies in the last few decades and the argumentative character of several interpreted situations, the extent to which knowledge of argumentation theory by the interpreter could benefit the overall comprehension of the original or source text and favour the production of the respective interpreted text has yet to be explored (Crevatin in Marzocchi, 1998, Preface, p. xiv). More precisely, the growing interest in argumentation has gone mostly unnoticed in interpreting scholarly settings, in spite of its multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary nature. This is partly due to the fact that interpreting research is a fairly young and largely unexplored discipline (Garzone & Viezzi, 2002, p. 2), and the contribution of argumentation makes up one of most overlooked albeit potentially fruitful domains.

The paper outlines the preliminary findings of a broader PhD project focusing on the empirical examination of recurrent argument schemes in a multilingual corpus of political speeches. By harnessing the hermeneutical and contrastive functions of argumentation analysis (Marzocchi, 1998, p. 8), the study uncovers substantial differences in speakers’ adoption of argument schemes, thereby making the case for enhanced language-specific, argumentation-driven interpreter preparation. In this respect, the present paper is primarily concerned with the applicability of argumentation concepts and methods to interpreter training. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2014 ~ The Voices Of Justice; Argumentative Polyphony And Strategic Manoeuvring In Judgement Motivations: An Example From The Italian Constitutional Court

• by: Marina Bletsas - Department of Romance Studies, University of Bonn, Germany

Abstract: Combining the ScaPoLine (Nølke, Fløttum, & Norén, 2004; Nølke, 2009, 2011, 2013) with the (extended) pragma-dialectical approach (van Eemeren & Grootendorst 1984; 2004; van Eemeren 2010), I suggest a reconstruction of judgement motivations as critical discussions between a plurality of voices conveyed even in one and the same sentence. In particular, I present some illustrative examples of polyphonic strategic manoeuvring from a landmark judgment of the Italian Constitutional Court: n. 440/1995.

Keywords: Critical discussion, Italian Constitutional Court, legal discourse, polyphony, Pragma-dialectics, ScaPoLine, strategic manoeuvring.

1. Introduction
When reading legal texts such as judgement motivations, one encounters a plurality of voices carrying different views on the issue at stake. This happens not only – quite unsurprisingly – at a textual level, but also at the micro-level of the utterance (cf. Nølke, 2009, p. 12). With Nølke (2009, p. 12), I focus here on “polyphonie en langue, conçue comme le produit des éléments de la langue susceptibles de favoriser une certaine lecture polyphonique de la parole.” I maintain that the use of such polyphony has an argumentative significance and that this can lead to reconstruct such apparently monological texts as fully fledged critical discussions permeated by the striving for rhetoric efficiency known in Pragma-dialectics as strategic manoeuvring (van Eemeren, 2010). In other words, I suggest focusing on argumentative polyphony in judicial motivations and looking at it from the angle of rhetoric efficiency, since, as van Eemeren (2010, p. 153) pointedly writes, it is the “ample room left for strategic maneuvering [that] is, in fact, the basis of the legal profession.”

The matters addressed in the present contribution are of methodological order and can be broken down into two questions:
* Can an integration of the pragma-dialectical and a polyphonic approach provide useful insights into argumentation analysis?
* Does polyphony account for strategic manoeuvring in judgement motivations?

The fundamental suggestion put forward is therefore the integration of two theoretical pillars: the (extended) Pragma-dialectics on the one hand (see among others van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 2004; 1992; 1984; van Eemeren, 2010), and the linguistic polyphonic approach known under the acronym ScaPoLine – which stands for Théorie SCAndinave de la POlyphonie LINguistique – on the other hand (see among others Nølke, Fløttum & Norén, 2004; Nølke, 2006; Nølke, 2013).

2. Theoretical framework
2.1 The first pillar: Extended Pragma-dialectics
I will not dwell largely upon the first pillar here, since it is the specialty of the Institution hosting the conference from which the present volume results. Only two aspects are to be briefly recalled to the reader’s mind: the ideal abstract model of a critical discussion, in which argumentation and standpoint are staged, and the rhetorical component present in argumentation. Read more

Holland vs The Netherlands