ISSA Proceedings 2014 – “Death Penalty For The Down’s Syndrome” – Polish Cultural Symbols In Discussion About IVF And Abortion

Abstract: A basic unit of analysis of ideological systems is a generalized axiological proposition, in which as arguments serve cultural and ideological objects, which have a culturally developed interpretation and convey the subsets of assigned values. The objective of this paper is to present how such objects constitute the base of the discourse. Analysis of chosen texts reveals, how at every stage of argumentation arguers create ideological systems by adopting different ascriptions to cultural objects.

Keywords: abortion, axiological argumentation, collective symbols, cultural objects, ideology, IVF.

1. Introduction
The discussion concerning IVF and abortion has lasted in Poland for over 20 years and it still occupies the first pages and covers of many periodicals. Both adherents of these procedures and their opponents are swing from one extreme to the other using fallacious arguments which explore collective symbols that allow the arguers to play on audience’s emotions. The stimulus for the following paper was an article under the meaningful title: “Death penalty for the Down’s syndrome” (Dueholm, 2013). The following is an excerpt of the aforementioned article:

The war against people with the Down’s syndrome (…) just because they look differently, they score lower on the IQ tests, and sometimes they have different diseases, has begun long time ago. The twentieth century has been defiled by their institutionalized extermination on a vast scale, initiated by the action of eugenicists in such ‘enlightened countries’ as the United Kingdom, the Scandinavian countries, the United States, and the most well-known and effective one – Germany.

The 1933 law of the Third Reich allowed for the sterilization of mentally disabled people of German nationality, including those with Down syndrome. Later, in the period from 1939 to 1944, disabled people were killed as part of T4. The process of their elimination began precisely from killing children. Some of them were typed ‘for termination’ by midwives, soon after their birth. Some disabled people died killed by injection, others poisoned with gas, and still others were starved to death (…)”. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2014 – Conflict And Tension: The Discursive Dissonance At The UN

Abstract: We aim at examining the governmental political marketing and its rhetorical strategies of maintenance, which also has the task of projecting an innovative image, so that the government survive and perpetuate. Among these strategies, it is included the dialogue with others governments in the international community and the engagement with common causes to the globalized world. This scenario requires an interdisciplinary field, mediated by the theories of argumentation, which constitute the core of all efforts of political nature. Speeches taken from the UN Assembly on September 23rd 2013, pronounced in a moment of great tension, not softened by diplomatic diligences, will be examined. The study of actio, the performance of political actors, is included.

Keywords: Actio, conflict, image, interdisciplinarity, negotiation, political speeches, stasis, strategies, tension, United Nation.

1. Introduction
The confrontation of speeches or stasis is frequent in contemporary political speeches, in a world that grows more complex and where it is increasingly more difficult to understand the various focuses of the questions. When one thinks of the deliberative discourse as it was conceived in the Greek-Latin world, it is possible to notice that the clash of discourses then was also heated, with the raise of discordant voices against what was being proposed. However, the transition from the Greek polis to the modern concept of State has introduced significant changes. In the latter, the political discourse is a conflictive setting in which the many manifestations are exacerbated, modulated, and softened by the norms of courtesy and diplomatic mediation necessary for modern life to work. New genres and formats arise, aiming at diverse audiences and media outlets. Although the concept of politics remains the same as in its origin – that which preserves the Common Good and what is useful and necessary to the collectivity (deliberative), what is fair (judiciary), and the cohesion of society (epideictic) – the process of institutionalization that was gradually taking place gave it new configurations. Conversely, the media, in its role as an agent that presents different angles of a story or fact, exaggerates some aspects more than one can imagine. It is up for the citizen to disentangle the questions and form an opinion about the different situations. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2014 – Bingo! Promising Developments In Argumentation Theory

Abstract: On the occasion of the publication in 2014 of the new Handbook of Argumentation Theory, which provides an overview of the current state of the art in the field, van Eemeren identifies three major developments in the treatment of argumentation that he finds promising. First, there is in various theoretical traditions the trend towards empiricalization, which includes both qualitative and quantitative empirical research. Second, there is the increased and explicit attention being paid to the institutional macro-contexts in which argumentative discourse takes place and the effects they have on the argumentation. Third, there is, particularly in the dialectical approaches, a movement towards formalization, which is strongly stimulated by the recent advancement of artificial intelligence. According to van Eemeren, if they are integrated with each other and comply with pertinent academic requirements, the developments of empiricalization, contextualization and formalization of the treatment of argumentation will mean “bingo!” for the future of argumentation theory.

Keywords: contextualization, dialectical perspective, empiricalization, formalization, pragma-dialectics, rhetorical perspective, state of the art

1. Changes in the state of the art of argumentation theory
Since the conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation held in Amsterdam in July 2014 was the eighth ISSA conference, argumentation theorists from various kinds of backgrounds have been exchanging views about argumentation for almost thirty years. My keynote speech at the start of this conference seemed to me the right occasion for making some general comments on the way in which the field is progressing.

I considered myself in a good position to strike a balance because during the past five years I have been preparing an overview of the state of the art in a new Handbook of Argumentation Theory. I have done so together with my co-authors, Bart Garssen, Erik C. W. Krabbe, A. Francisca Snoeck Henkemans, Bart Verheij, and Jean H. M. Wagemans. In this complicated endeavour we have been supported generously by a large group of knowledgeable reviewers and advisors from the field. On the 2 July reception of the ISSA conference the Handbook was to be presented to the community of argumentation scholars. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2014 – Self-Argumentative Words: The Case Of Nature And Natural

Abstract: The words nature and natural operate in a specific way while used in an argumentation. Observation confirms that these words are never used with a negative argumentative orientation. This functioning will be illustrated on a corpus of sequences of public debate about same sex marriage. The hypothesis according to which this fact is due to the intrinsic semantic properties of these words will be examined.

Keywords: nature / natural, point of view, semantics, argumentative potential

1. Introduction
Several words seem to be arguments in themselves: the choice of those words tend to determine a statement’s argumentative potential. This idea, far from being new, has been sustained for a long time by various branches of Argumentation Within Language, a semantic theory developed by the French scholars Ducrot and Anscombre (1983). Its basic thesis consists in the claim that any sentence in any language can be used as an argument for some (but not any!) conclusion (Raccah, 2002). Consequently, this argumentational potentiality ought to be taken into account while semantic descriptions of sentences, and their components, are carried out. This potentiality can be described after shrewd observation of language use and a generalization of the observations results. That also means that observation of language use, in this framework, is not a purpose but a way towards abstraction. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2014 – “‘Rule Of Law,’ ‘Freedom,’ And ‘Democracy’: Domestic And International Building Blocks Of Contemporary Russian Political Ideology”

Abstract: We analyze the definitional arguments of Vladimir Putin relative to the terms ‘democracy,’ ‘freedom,’ and ‘rule of law.’ We examine the definitional relationships among these terms in Putin’s rhetoric, with a focus on “rule of law.” We look at primary appeals targeting domestic Russian audiences as well as Putin’s message to the American people on possible US air strikes against Syria, looking for the definitional construction of rule of law in the discourse.

Keywords: Putin, Russia, democracy, freedom, rule of law, argument by definition, rhetorical choices, translation

1. Introduction
Periods of national transition are, by definition, times of change. Sometimes that change is sought, driven by a desire to move to a different place or time. When that happens, change is guided by a rhetorical and argumentative transformation of needs and desires. Although material conditions are clearly part of the equation producing national change, the interpretation of those conditions is at least as important. As Zarfesky (1997) notes,

Although some of the political science literature still mistakenly regards problems as empirical conditions to be found, a growing number of writers recognize that they are categories to be created.

He continues, “To define a condition as a problem is to invoke a frame of reference within which the condition is assessed, causality and blame are determined, and solutions are considered” (1997, p. 6). Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2014 ~ An Argumentative Approach To Policy ‘Framing’. Competing ‘Frames’ And Policy Conflict In The Roşia Montană Case

ABSTRACT: This paper proposes a new theorization of the concept of ‘framing’, in which argumentation has a central role. When decision-making is involved, to ‘frame’ an issue amounts to offering the audience a salient and thus potentially overriding premise in a deliberative process that can ground decision and action. The analysis focuses on the Roşia Montană case, a conflict over policy that led, in September 2013, to the most significant public protests in Romania since the 1989 Revolution.

KEY WORDS: decision, deliberation, frame, framing, metaphor, policy, practical argument, Roşia Montană

Introduction
This article develops an approach to framing theory from the perspective of argumentation theory (Fairclough & Fairclough 2012, 2013) by analyzing the public debate on the proposed cyanide-based gold mining project at Roșia Montană (Romania). It puts forward a view of ‘framing’ as a process of offering an audience a salient and potentially overriding premise that they are expected to use in deliberation leading to decision and action (Fairclough 2015, Fairclough forthcoming b). It also aims to make an empirical contribution to the study of the Roșia Montană case, a policy conflict that has set the Romanian government and a multinational company against the Romanian population and, in September 2013, led to the most intense public protests since the fall of communism. The outcome was the rejection by the Romanian Parliament of a draft law that would have given the green light to the largest open-cast gold mining operations in Europe.

This study is part of a larger project that analyzes a corpus of over 600 Romanian press articles, covering the months of August and September 2013, with a twofold purpose: (a) to develop and test an argumentative conception of the process of framing; (b) to gain insight into how four major Romanian newspapers have attempted to reflect and influence the public debate, by finding out which aspects of the policy conflict were selected and made salient in the media, and how they were intended to function in the process of public deliberation. For reasons of space, we will not analyze this corpus here, but illustrate the framework with a smaller corpus of campaign material (leaflets, slogans, placards, website information).

ROȘIA MONTANĂ: A Brief Overview
Roşia Montană is a commune of 16 villages, located in the Western Carpathians, in an area rich in gold and other precious metals, but also in natural beauty and tradition. It has a recorded history of over 2000 years and has been a gold-mining area since Roman times. The region is however plagued by a range of socio-economic problems which demand a strategy of sustainable development (Plăiaș 2012). The controversial mining project advanced by the Canadian corporation Gabriel Resources Ltd. in partnership with the Romanian state (renamed Roșia Montană Gold Corporation, henceforth RMGC, in 2000) has claimed to provide just such a solution, by “bring[ing] one of the world’s largest undeveloped gold projects to production” (The Roșia Montană Gold & Silver Project: A Project for Romania 2014). The project would require large-scale cyanide-leaching procedures in order to extract an estimated 314 tons of gold and 1,480 tons of silver from 4 open-cast pits over a 16-year period. While the economic benefits to the Romanian state were invariably presented by the corporation as extraordinary, Romania’s projected equity stake in the company was only 19.31%, the other 80.69% being owned by Gabriel Resources, according to company data in 2014. Read more

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