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1. Introduction
People sometimes use expert evidence in support of their claims in persuasive texts (Hornikx, 2004) or speeches (Levasseur & Dean, 1996). The fact that, for instance, Professor Jackson underscores that playing party games helps young criminals to become more socialized, may serve as expert evidence in support of a claim about the effects of playing games for young criminals. In such cases, an argument by authority is formed, because “a statement is defended by pointing out the fact that an authoritative person or institution subscribes to it” (Schellens, 1985, p. 179).

Walton (1997) provided a detailed discussion of the argument by authority, and distinguished two different types of authority: the administrative authority and the cognitive authority. An administrative authority has “the right to exercise command over others or to make rulings binding on others through an invested office or recognized position of power” (p. 76). Examples of this kind of authority are a minister and a mayor. When a cognitive authority is concerned, there is “a relationship between two individuals where one is an expert in a field of knowledge in such a manner that his pronouncements in the field carry a special weight of presumption for the other individual” (p. 77). When expert evidence is used as support for claims in a persuasive setting, it is related to this cognitive authority.

In Section 2, I will give an overview of studies that investigated the persuasiveness of expert evidence as well as other types of evidence. One of these studies demonstrated that the persuasiveness of expert evidence was not the same in two different cultures. Section 3 will therefore discuss the relationship between expert evidence and the cultural background of people who judge expert evidence. Special attention will be paid to the question whether people from different cultures may vary in the persuasiveness of expert evidence that is normatively strong or normatively weak according to criteria from argumentation theory. The second part of this article will report on an experiment that investigated the persuasiveness of normatively strong or normatively weak expert evidence in France and the Netherlands.

2. The persuasiveness of expert evidence
The persuasiveness of different types of evidence has been empirically investigated for more than 60 years. Evidence has been defined as “data (facts or opinions) presented as proof for an assertion” (Reynolds & Reynolds, 2002, p. 429). Hoeken and Hustinx (2003) distinguish anecdotal, statistical, causal, and expert evidence. Anecdotal evidence consists of one case, whereas statistical evidence consists of numerical information about a large number of cases. Causal evidence, next, consists of an explanation, and expert evidence, finally, consists of a confirmation by an expert. The types of evidence appear not to be equally persuasive. In a recent review of empirical studies, which was the first to include all four types of evidence, Hornikx (2005) concluded that statistical and causal evidence are more persuasive than anecdotal evidence. For expert evidence, such conclusions are harder to make because of the limited number of empirical studies that examined the persuasiveness of expert evidence and other types of evidence: Hoeken and Hustinx (2003), and Hornikx and Hoeken (2005).

Hoeken and Hustinx (2003) were the first to investigate the persuasiveness of all four types of evidence. Expert evidence was found to be as persuasive as statistical and causal evidence, and more persuasive than anecdotal evidence. Hornikx and Hoeken (2005) also investigated these four types of evidence, but not only with Dutch participants – as in Hoeken and Hustinx (2003) – but also with French participants. Moreover, the quality of the evidence instantiations was taken into account. The instantiations of statistical and expert evidence were normatively strong according to criteria from argumentation theory. Normatively strong statistical evidence should consist of a large sample of cases that is representative for the population in the claim that it supports (Garssen, 1997; Schellens, 1985). Expert evidence is normatively strong if the expert is credible and reliable, and if the expert’s field of expertise corresponds to the field of the claim (see also Walton, 1997). For the Dutch participants in Hornikx and Hoeken (2005), expert evidence was as persuasive as causal evidence, less persuasive than statistical evidence, but more persuasive than anecdotal evidence. For the French participants, expert evidence was as persuasive as statistical evidence, but more persuasive than causal and anecdotal evidence.

Both Hoeken and Hustinx (2003), and Hornikx and Hoeken (2005) demonstrate that expert evidence is more persuasive than anecdotal evidence. However, their results differed in how the persuasiveness of expert evidence relates to that of statistical and causal evidence. This difference may be attributed to the two studies’ differences in participants (Dutch or French) and material (normatively strong instantiations or not). In the next section, therefore, I will discuss the possible influence of culture and normative criteria on the persuasiveness of expert evidence, and – in particular – the interplay between these two factors.

3. Culture and expert evidence
Some argumentation scholars have stressed the importance of possible cultural differences in the evaluation of argument types (e.g., Hollihan & Baaske, 1998; Sanders, Gass & Wiseman, 1991), and of strong and weak arguments (e.g., MacIntyre, 1988; McKerrow, 1990). Hornikx and Hoeken (2005) were particularly interested in cultural differences in the persuasiveness of expert evidence. The results of their experiment demonstrated that expert evidence was relatively more persuasive to the French participants than to the Dutch participants. This cultural difference was explained with reference to the concept of power distance (cf. Jansen, 1999; Pornpitakpan, 2004). Power distance is “the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally” (Hofstede, 2001, p. 98). For expert evidence to be persuasive, the receiver will have to accept that the expert possesses more knowledge about the topic in question. Kruglanski et al. (2005) suggested that the influence of experts on people depends on the perceived gap between their own knowledge and that of the expert. It could be argued that such a gap in knowledge is accepted more easily in large power distance cultures such as the French than in small power distance cultures such as the Dutch. Therefore, expert evidence might be more persuasive in the French culture than in the Dutch culture.

The difference in the persuasiveness of expert evidence in both cultures in Hornikx and Hoeken (2005) was less pronounced than could be expected on the basis of the large difference in power distances in the Dutch and the French culture that Hofstede (2001) reports. In Hornikx and Hoeken (2005), the expert evidence instantiations were strong according to criteria from argumentation theory: the experts were constructed to be credible and reliable, and their field of expertise was relevant to the field of the claim that the expert supported. Larger cultural differences could be suggested with normatively weak expert evidence, consisting of experts with an irrelevant field of expertise. In fact, the French communication scholar Breton (2003) argues that experts can influence people’s opinions about an issue that is far from their own field of expertise. This suggests that – under conditions of a large power distance – expert evidence with an irrelevant field of expertise (normatively weak) may still be persuasive. People from the French culture more easily accept differences in power distance, and may therefore be less affected by the relevance of the experts’ field of expertise, provided that these experts have a high status (e.g., because of titles). People from small power distance cultures such as the Dutch could be said to take into account the relevance of the field of expertise. This leads to the first research question:

RQ1 – Is there a cultural difference in the relative persuasiveness of normatively
strong and normatively weak expert evidence in France and the Netherlands?

If such a cultural difference indeed occurs, normatively weak expert evidence could be more persuasive in the French culture than in the Dutch culture:

RQ2 – Is normatively weak expert evidence more persuasive in France than in the
Netherlands?

4. Method
An experiment was set up to answer these two research questions. Dutch and French participants were given a number of claims supported by normatively strong and normatively weak evidence.

4.1 Material
Participants received 20 claims, taken from Hornikx and Hoeken (2005). An example of such a claim is ‘Waiters that repeat the orders of customers verbatim receive a higher tip’. Ten claims were supported by causal or anecdotal evidence. These were used as fillers between the ten other claims, which were supported by normatively strong or normatively weak evidence. Normatively weak expert evidence was created by changing the relevant field of expertise into an irrelevant field of expertise. Each field of expertise in Hornikx and Hoeken (2005) was used for strong expert evidence, but also for weak expert evidence.

Statistical evidence was also included in the material because it allowed to control whether French participants were sensitive to differences in evidence quality for this type of evidence. The statistical evidence instantiations in Hornikx and Hoeken (2005) were normatively strong because they had large sample sizes, and high percentages of cases in the sample. In this experiment, two sets of normatively strong and normatively weak statistical evidence were created: ‘78% of 314 persons’ and ‘74% of 381 persons’ for the strong instantiations, and ‘35% of 46 persons’ and ‘38% of 53 persons’ for the weak instantiations.

4.2 Participants
The Dutch participants were mostly Arts students from universities in Amsterdam (n = 73; five groups), Delft (n = 21; two groups), Enschede (n = 28; three groups), Nijmegen (n = 77), and Tilburg (n = 101; three groups). The French participants were also mostly Arts students, in Besançon (n = 49), Paris (n = 56; two groups), Roubaix (n = 58), Strasbourg (n = 65; six groups), and Tours (n = 72). Of the French participants, 81.3% was female, whereas this percentage was only 70.0% for the Dutch participants. The age of the French participants ranged from 17 to 30, with a mean of 20.19 (SD = 1.81). The Dutch participants were 20.64 years old on average (SD = 1.91), with ages from 17 to 26[i].

4.3 Design
The multiple message design of Hornikx and Hoeken (2005) was used. All participants received the 20 claims in exactly the same order in each version, but the distribution of the five types of evidence over the 10 experimental claims and the five versions followed a balanced Latin square. The fifth type of evidence was the no evidence condition. This condition served as a baseline, and allowed to compute the persuasiveness of evidence: the judgment of a claim with evidence minus the judgment of the same claim without evidence.

4.4 Instrumentation
The booklet that participants received was titled ‘Opinions on social issues’. After an instruction, 20 pairs of claims with different types of evidence followed. For each of the claims, participants judged the probability on 5-point semantic differentials (very improbable – very probable). After these 20 judgments, participants received a number of items of three context variables for which they had to indicate their agreement on a 5-point Likert scale. As a control with Hornikx and Hoeken (2005), participants were given seven items of the Need for Cognition scale (NFC; Cacioppo, Petty, & Kao, 1984). In order to better be able to explain possible cultural differences (see Hornikx, 2006), two variables were included: four items of the Preference for Expert Information scale (PEI; Hornikx & Hoeken, 2005), and 10 items of the Right-Wing Authoritarianism scale (RWA; Altemeyer, 1988), which has proven to be related to power distance (see Rohan & Zanna, 1996). All three scales were reliable (NFC: Dutch α = .72, French α = .78; PEI: Dutch α = .75, French α = .79; RWA: Dutch α = .60, French α = .71).

After these items, the perceived expertise of the experts was measured as in Hornikx and Hoeken (2005). Participants indicated the degree to which they agreed with a standpoint on a 5-point Likert scale, such as: “Professor Timmermans is a researcher in the field of retail marketing at the University of Rotterdam. In that capacity, he has enough expertise to make a judgment about the relation between slow music in supermarkets and their turnover”. For the perceived quality of normatively strong statistical evidence, participants were asked to indicate on a 5-point semantic differential which of the two examples they would choose as proof for the generality of the occurrence of an effect: “the effect occurs in 35% of 46 persons” or “the effect occurs in 78% of 314 persons”. The questionnaire ended with questions about participants’ age, sex, nationality, and current education.

4.5 Procedure
Students of several universities in the Netherlands and France filled in the questionnaire. The study was introduced as being about social issues. The students were not rewarded for their participation, which took about 13 to 18 minutes. After the questionnaires had been collected, the real research purpose was revealed, and participants were thanked for their cooperation. There were no disturbances during the experiment.

4.6 Statistical tests
The research question about cultural differences in the persuasiveness of normatively strong and normatively weak expert evidence was evaluated through a 2 (culture) x 2 (type) x 2 (quality) analysis of variance, where culture was a between-subjects factor, and type of evidence and evidence quality within-subjects factors. The research question about cultural differences in the persuasiveness of normatively weak expert evidence was investigated in two ways. The persuasiveness of normatively weak expert evidence in the two cultural groups was directly compared with an independent t-test, and indirectly by comparing it with the persuasiveness of normatively strong expert evidence. Next to these analyses by participants, analyses by stimuli were also conducted.

A within-subjects design carries the risk of a carry over effect: the participants’ judgments of claims in the second part of the booklet may be influenced by their judgments of claims in the first part. The occurrence of a carry over effect was tested with a 2 (first judgment, last judgment) x 2 (expert, statistical) analysis of variance with repeated measures, and a 2 (first judgment, last judgment) x 2 (strong, weak) analysis of variance with repeated measures. If participants had learned to perceive differences between the type and the quality of evidence, there should have been significant interaction effects. However, interaction effects were not significant for time of judgment and type of evidence (F (1, 599) = 2.33, p = .13), or for time of judgment and quality of evidence (F (1, 599) = 1.63, p = .20).

5. Results
Before I present the results relevant to the research questions (5.2), I will discuss participants’ reactions to the manipulations of strong and weak evidence (5.1).

5.1 Manipulation of strong and weak evidence
Since scholars in cross-cultural methodology suggest checking whether participants with different cultural backgrounds have the same use of scale extremities (Van de Vijver & Leung, 1997), this was done for the Dutch and French participants with the Bachman and O’Malley (1984) index. Because of cultural differences in response extremity on the claims and the context variables (p’s < .01), the scores on these items were standardized. The analyses below will concern standardized data, unless indicated otherwise.

Next, it was tested whether the manipulations of strong and weak statistical and expert evidence were successful. Strong statistical evidence was indeed perceived as stronger than weak statistical evidence (t-tests with raw data). This was the case for both the French participants (M = 3.71, SD = 1.28; t(290) = 9.52, p < .001), and the Dutch participants (M = 4.39, SD = 0.99; t(298) = 24.12, p < .001), as each group of participants scored above the scale midpoint (3.00). However, the manipulation was more successful for the Dutch participants than for the French participants (t(547.15) = 7.12, p < .001).

Next, it was checked whether the normatively strong experts were considered as having more expertise than the normatively weak experts. The French participants perceived the strong experts (M = 3.02, SD = 0.86) as more expert than the weak experts (M = 2.61, SD = 0.92), F (1, 299) = 46.48, p < .001, η2 = .14. Similarly, the Dutch participants considered the strong experts (M = 3.30, SD = 0.83) had more expertise than the weak experts (M = 2.33, SD = 0.85), F (1, 299) = 255.81, p < .001, η2 = .46. The operationalization of weak and strong expert evidence was successful, but the difference in expertise between strong and weak experts was more pronounced for the Dutch participants than for the French participants (F (1, 598) = 43.93, p < .001, η2 = .07).

In sum, the manipulations of strong and weak evidence were successful, but to a larger extent for the Dutch participants than for the French participants. Whether these cultural differences affected the sensitivity to evidence quality will be shown below, where the results relevant to the research questions are presented.

5.2 Research questions
An experiment was conducted to investigate the persuasiveness of normatively strong and normatively weak expert evidence in the Dutch and the French culture. Table 1 shows the persuasiveness of these two types of evidence, and of normatively strong and weak statistical evidence.

For RQ1 about cultural differences in the persuasiveness of normatively strong and weak expert evidence, the interaction effect between culture and quality on the persuasiveness of expert evidence is relevant. This interaction was significant: F1 (1, 598) = 11.43, p < .01, η2 = .02; F2 (1, 9) = 14.05, p < .01, η2 = .61. For the French participants, there was no difference in the persuasiveness of strong and weak expert evidence (t1 (299) = 0.89, p = .37; t2 (9) = 1.03, p = .33), whereas strong expert evidence was more persuasive than weak expert evidence for the Dutch participants (t1 (299) = 3.77, p < .001; t2 (9) = 2.37, p < .05). It should be noted that a similar interaction effect was found for statistical evidence: F1 (1, 598) = 7.62, p < .01, η2 = .01; F2 (1, 9) = 20.47, p < .01, η2 = .70. For the French participants, strong statistical evidence was as persuasive as weak statistical evidence (t1 (299) = 0.90, p = .37; t2 (9) = 1.65, p = .13), but for the Dutch participants strong statistical evidence was more persuasive than weak statistical evidence (t1 (299) = 4.65, p < .001; t2 (9) = 4.63, p < .01).

The second research question focused on the persuasiveness of normatively weak expert evidence in the Dutch and the French culture (RQ2). In an absolute way, weak expert evidence was equally persuasive in both cultures (t1 (598) = 0.77, p = .44; t2 (9) = 0.61, p = .56). In a relative way, however, weak expert evidence was more persuasive in France, as it was as persuasive as strong expert evidence. Finally, context variables were selected in order to be able to explain possible cultural differences in the persuasiveness of expert evidence[ii]. The French and Dutch participants, however, did not differ with respect to their scores on the PEI (t(585.51) = 1.65, p = .10), and RWA scales (t(581.81) = 0.61, p = .54).

6. Conclusion and discussion
Hornikx and Hoeken (2005) demonstrated that normatively strong expert evidence was more persuasive in the French culture than in the Dutch culture, but only in a relative way. Larger cultural differences could be suggested with normatively weak expert evidence. On the basis of Breton (2003) and Hofstede (2001), I suggested that there could be cultural differences in the persuasiveness of strong and weak expert evidence in the French and the Dutch culture. An experiment was set up to investigate the persuasiveness of these two types of expert evidence. A cultural difference indeed occurred: strong expert evidence was more persuasive than weak expert evidence for the Dutch participants, but both types of expert evidence were equally convincing for the French participants.

Normatively weak expert evidence was not more persuasive in the French culture than in the Dutch culture in an absolute way. It was more persuasive, though, in a relative way, because it was as persuasive as normatively strong expert evidence for the French participants. Below, I will explore possible explanations for these cultural differences (6.1), and I will present implications of this study for argumentation theory (6.2).

6.1 Possible explanations
In order to be able to explain possible cultural differences, I included the PEI and the RWA scale in the questionnaire. Unfortunately, these scales were not successful in providing explanations. Other explanations for the French result that normatively strong and normatively weak evidence were equally persuasive can be explored in two directions. A first explanation may come from the Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). According to this model, people’s sensitivity to variations in argument quality (e.g., strong and weak evidence instantiations) depends on factors such as people’s motivation and ability to scrutinize a message’s claim and arguments. Under conditions of low motivation and/or low ability, people are predicted to use heuristics such as ‘There is numerical information / an expert source, so the claim must be probable’ rather than to carefully elaborate the message’s arguments. It could be suggested that the French participants relied more on heuristics, whereas the Dutch participants carefully elaborated the claims with evidence. The only indicator for participants’ motivation in this study is their score on the Need for Cognition scale (Cacioppo, et al., 1984). As the French and the Dutch participants did not differ in their (moderate) score on the NFC, there is no strong support for a cultural difference in the participants’ elaboration.

A second, more specific explanation deals with the perceived quality of normatively strong and normatively weak evidence. French participants perceived a much smaller difference between the expertise of strong and weak experts, and between the quality of strong and weak statistical evidence than the Dutch participants. Explanations for these small French differences are not straightforward. A possible explanation for expert evidence, however, lies in the French educational system, in which teachers are considered omniscient (e.g., Gruère & Morel, 1991; Planel, 1997). In such an educational system, it is understandable that the French participants accorded the professors quite a high level of expertise on a domain that is not their field of expertise.

6.2 Implications for argumentation theory
Normative criteria for strong argumentation have been developed by American and European argumentation theorists. There are no research findings to date that demonstrate that norms related to the persuasiveness of evidence types (or argument types) differ or not from culture to culture. Still, if norms should be culture-independent, cultures may react differently to these norms. The experiment presented here demonstrates that the degree to which expert and statistical evidence met the criteria of a relevant field of expertise and a large sample size respectively did not influence the persuasiveness of these evidence types for the French participants. However, it is still an open question as to whether normative criteria are universal and people’s reactions to these criteria are culture-dependent, or as to whether the normative criteria are culture-dependent. Empirical research is needed to gain insight into this question. Focus groups or interviews could be used to learn what normative criteria laymen from different cultures have for evidence types such as statistical and expert evidence (cf. Timmers, Šorm & Schellens, 2006). Laymen’s responses could be compared to normative criteria listed by argumentation theorists. This research approach can provide valuable insight into the conditions under which evidence can be persuasive, and into how the cultural background of people affects this persuasiveness.

Notes
i. The difference in sex distribution was significant (X2 (1) = 10.32, p < .01). Participants’ sex, however, did not affect the relative persuasiveness of the types of evidence (F < 1), but it did affect the relative persuasiveness of strong and weak evidence (F (1, 597) = 4.71, p < .05, η2 = .01). In fact, strong evidence was more persuasive to the male participants (M = 0.42, SD = 0.73) than to the female participants (M = 0.27, SD = 0.68) (t(597) = 2.25, p < .05). However, more importantly, for both the male participants (t(145) = 3.41, p < .01) and the female participants (t(452) = 2.55, p < .05) strong evidence was more persuasive than weak evidence. Next, the Dutch participants were significantly older than the French participants (t(596.21) = 2.97, p < .01). This difference did not affect the persuasiveness of evidence, as age did not interact with evidence type (F (1, 598) = 1.35, p = .25), or evidence quality (F < 1).
ii. Other main and interaction effects not mentioned in the text are listed here. There was a main effect of type of evidence on persuasiveness with an analysis by participants (F1 (1, 598) = 8.22, p < .01, η2 = .01), but there was only a tendency for such a main effect with an analysis by stimuli (F2 (1, 9) = 4.01, p = .08). There was also a main effect of quality (F1 (1, 598) = 18.53, p < .001, η2 = .03; F2 (1, 9) = 9.26, p < .05, η2 = .51): high quality evidence was more persuasive than low quality evidence. A main effect of culture occurred with an analysis by participants (F1 (1, 598) = 8.43, p < .01, η2 = .01), but not with an analysis by stimuli (F2 (1, 9) = 3.29, p = .10). There was no interaction effect between evidence type and evidence quality (F1 (1, 598) = 2.16, p = .14; F2 (1, 9) = 1.48, p = .25), or between evidence type and culture (F1 (1, 598) = 1.37, p = .24; F2 (1, 9) = 1.34, p = .28). Another interaction effect, however, did occur, namely between culture and evidence quality (F1 (1, 598) = 17.91, p < .001, η2 = .03; F2 (1, 9) = 25.61, p < .01, η2 = .74). Finally, a three-way interaction effect between the three factors was not significant (F1 < 1; F2 < 1). The same effects were found with the raw data.

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1. Characteristics of Children’s Verbal Arguments
Verbal arguments are part of young children’s normal activity and are usually “rule governed and socially organized events” (Benoit 1992, p. 733). Researchers have concluded that they have a positive effect on friendships and cognitive development (Corsaro 1994, Dawe 1934, Garvey 1993, Green 1933, and Shantz 1987). Corsaro (1994, p. 22) states “disputes provide children with a rich arena for development of language, interpersonal and social organization skills, and social knowledge.” In fact, O’Keefe and Benoit (1982) see argument as part of normal language learning. Piaget (1952, p. 65) states “[i]t may well be through quarrelling that children first come to feel the need for making themselves understood”.

Children’s arguments are generally short in duration. For example, Dawe (1934) found that on average quarrels last 14 seconds, while O’Keefe and Benoit (1982) found that young children’s disputes consisted of an average of five turns. Although these disputes are not long in duration, they are powerful events. Once a dispute has begun, “any prior goal or task is abandoned and the attention is directed to resolving the incompatibility” but “[o]nce the conflict is resolved, play can once again be resumed” (Eisenberg and Garvey 1981, p.151). These verbal disputes can be considered as “side-sequences” (Jefferson, 1972), important at the moment, but with no lasting effect on interaction.

2. The Study and Research Question
This paper will report on ongoing research investigating the verbal arguments of Hebrew speaking pre-school children. The data for this research was transcribed from videotapes of fourteen triads of pre-school children at play in a playroom that was set up for the purpose of the study. The children are also in daily attendance at the same pre-school. The subjects’ ages ranged from 4 years six months to six years five months, however the maximum age differences of the children in each individual group was usually around six months. Children above the age of four were chosen since by this age normally developing children have acquired the basics of their language system (Brown, 1973). The children were all native speakers of Hebrew. While the children conducted their talk in Hebrew it was transcribed and translated simultaneously into English by the author.

While this is an ongoing study with a number of research questions, only one of these will be related to in this paper. This question is presented below:
Is the process of Israeli preschool children’s arguments consistent with the pragma-dialectical model of van Eemeren and Grootendorst (2004)?

3. The Pragma-Dialectical Model (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004)
By using the pragma-dialectical model for critical discussion to reconstruct an
argument, we are able to see its deeper structure. Since the model is informed by speech act theory (Searle 1976), this will allow for the investigation of both the children’s pragmatic ability and of their ability to sustain an argument.

The model has four discussion stages. These are confrontation, opening, argumentation, and concluding. In the confrontation stage, it becomes clear that there is a difference of opinion. In the opening stage the parties “try to find out how much relevant ground they share (as to the discussion format, background knowledge, values and so on)” (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004, p. 60). In the argumentation stage protagonists advance their argument, and if antagonists are not convinced, they will give further arguments, and finally in the concluding stage the argument is resolved to the satisfaction of the protagonists and the antagonists. Nevertheless, van Eemeren and Grootendorst recognize that this is an ideal model and that not all arguments go through all four stages, nor do all arguments go through the stages in order.

Searle (1976) distinguishes five basic kinds of speech acts. These are assertives (also known as representatives), directives, commissives, expressives, and declarations. Assertives are statements of fact that may be either true or false such as “But somebody needs to sleep in the bed” (the examples are from the corpus of the study). Directives are requests or commands, which can be made directly (“give it back to me”), or indirectly (“Do you want three buildings [I will give you a building if you give me the block]”), questions are directives as well. Commissives commit the speaker to “some future course of action” such as a promise or a threat, for example, “I will be your friend [if you give me the block]”) (Searle 1976, p. 11). Declarations must have some kind of official backing and authority such as a judge sentencing a criminal to a jail term, or in our case “I am (King) David, who solves the problems [(if you come to me I have the authority to solve your problems]”). While declarations have no place in the model, van Eemeren and Grootendorst do suggest a sub-type of speech act that they call ‘usage declarative’. Usage declaratives are definitions, specifications, amplifications and explanations to help the listener understand other speech acts (“There are two, two [J don’t accept what U says, there are only two buildings]”). Different kinds of speech acts are used in the four stages to bring the argument to resolution. While participants in an argument may use expressives, these do not aid in advancing an argument; only assertives, directives, and commissives are relative to the resolution of an argument.

4. Analyses of Two Verbal Arguments
Two verbal arguments will be analyzed below from the perspective of the pragma-dialectical model. The first is an argument between two boys. J is who is four years and nine months old is the protagonist, U is who is five years old is the antagonist. In addition, A who is four years and six months old is a participant observer who tries to clarify an error in U’s argument. The boys had previously divided the room into J’s territory and A and U’s territory. This behavior is very common in the play behavior of young children (Ariel and Sever 1980). J is building with large wooden blocks in his area of the room; there are two separate buildings in J’s area. U wants a block J is holding in his hand. Disputes over object possession are very common among children. In fact, the majority of disputes among English speaking children are over object possession. (Dawe 1934, Eisenberg and Garvey 1981, Howe and McWilliam 2001).

In turn one U uses a directive, making a request for the block. To make the request more attractive he adds a promise of his friendship and uses a commissive. This is the confrontation stage. It is now up to J to accept or reject the offer. When he says “no” he refuses U’s request and also performs a commissive. This is still the confrontation stage. Now, the players may move on to the opening stage. Yet, they leave this stage out and move straight on to the argumentation stage. U makes J an offer of A’s friendship as well as his own by performing a commissive and making an assertion that J will have three buildings if he allies himself with U and A. Nevertheless, A sees U’s mistakes and points out that there are only two buildings. This can be seen as a usage declarative since it is an attempt to help J understand that U’s offer is flawed – there really are only two buildings. In turn 5 there is a second confrontation and U uses an indirect directive by asking J if he wants three buildings (in exchange for the block). U does not need to make a direct request for the block again since according to the “Rule of Reinstating Request” (Labov and Fanshel 1977, p. 94) once a request has been made (turn 1) it is in effect and does not need to be restated. Again A feels the need to correct U. This time he uses a directive in the form of a warning to J. Now U commits himself to wanting three buildings, and again asks J to be with him and A so U can have three buildings and the block. J goes on to the argumentation stage and uses an assertive when he says he already has two. Again U asks J if he wants three buildings. This is the third confrontation. He is again requesting the block in exchange for three buildings and friendship. Now we come to the concluding stage when J finally says, “Yes” and agrees. U again requests the block for the fourth time by asking for it directly (“so give it to me”) since J has finally committed himself. In the next turn J rejects U’s requests by using assertives – “I do not want three” (and I do not want to give you the block or be your friend) “This is enough for me” to make his point. This is the fourth confrontation in the argument, but the argument does not continue since U has either given up or lost interest and walks away. Another explanation for U’s not continuing with the argument is J’s interruption in turn 12. Lein and Brenneis (1978) found that among white American middle class children simultaneous speech during a dispute would bring the argument to an abrupt halt. Finally, A cannot resist and must get in the last word (two).

To reveal the deep structure of the argument van Eemeren and Grootendorst (2004) propose making an analytical overview by performing analytical transformations. These include:

Deletion: of all those parts of the discourse or text which are not relevant to the resolution of the difference of opinion at issue.
Addition: of relevant parts that are implicit (unexpressed premises)
Substitutions: by the replacement of formulations that are confusingly ambiguous.
Permutations: require part of the discourse or text to be rearranged where necessary in a way that best brings out their relevance in the resolution process.

By using, deletion and addition, we can discover the structure of each participant’s arguments in the above-mentioned argument. For example, the structure of U’s argument and J’s arguments can be represented in the tables below (adapted from van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004, p. 122)

The second argument is between M the protagonist, who is a six-year-old girl, and the antagonist H who is six years two months in age. Again, there is a participant observer. T is a boy who is six years and four months old and offers his services as a mediator. Again this is an argument over object possession, but unlike U who never received the object he desired, H does succeed in getting the object, in this case a toy screwdriver, away from M. This may be because of his persuasive skills or simply because he had had possession of the object originally. For example, Bakeman and Brownlee (1982, p. 108) found that the resolution of “possession episodes” among young children often had a social base and not a power base, that is previous possession of an object gives a child the right to that object. Bakeman and Brownlee refer to this as the “prior possession rule”.

The preliminary stage of this argument begins when M declares that she has completely finished fixing the shelf. At this point in time H is playing with some clothes, which he and T found previously. He speaks to M and uses a directive and makes an indirect request for the screwdriver followed by a direct request. This is the first confrontation. When M replies with “What” she uses a directive for clarification. Again, the disputers could go on to the opening stage, but instead H uses an assertive that he considers a true fact and presents an argument (argument 1) of why M

should return the screwdriver. H’s argument is actually flawed. Although he had played with the screwdriver first, he gave it to M without any stipulations. M presents her argument with a commissive and agrees to return it within a certain time frame. She may have forgotten that she had not actually said she would return the screwdriver, or it may have been clear to her from the beginning that it was only on loan. In turn 6, H goes to the concluding stage, using two directives and agrees to the time frame. At this point T understands that there is an argument and offers his services as a mediator. In turn 10, H uses a directive as a direct request for the screwdriver, then waits three seconds and makes another direct request that tells M her time is up. This is the second confrontation. Again T offers his services to no avail. In turn 12, M uses a commissive and again offers the argument that she will return the screwdriver within a certain time frame. Again T offers his services, this time as King David from the bible no less. In line 14, M goes on to the third confrontation and uses a direct request for the screwdriver, but H has lost his patience and interrupts M. H uses an assertive and reminds M of what she said previously. This is the argumentation stage of the third confrontation. M finally gives H the screwdriver since her time frame was finally up. Yet, in turn 16 M regrets her action and begins a fourth confrontation. She first uses the expressive ‘no’ to protest her action, and then a direct request for the screwdriver back. However H has gone on to some private play and begins a monologue. Finally even though M again uses a directive as a direct request she is ignored. If we look at the structure of each participant’s argument we will see the following:

 

 

 

 

 

5. Discussion and Conclusions
If we compare the two arguments, we can see that they both leave out the opening stage. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the children are so well acquainted with rules of their mini-society that they are already aware of what they share together and, thus, find it unnecessary to elaborate further, or perhaps they are just too intellectually immature to engage in the opening stage.

In both arguments it seems difficult to find a solution that is satisfactory to all participants through argumentation. In the first argument the antagonist simply lost interest, and in the second argument once the antagonist had what he wanted he went on to something else, while the protagonist was certainly unhappy with the outcome and tried to reopen the argument to no avail. Nevertheless, we can see that these pre-school children are capable of sustaining an argument from the confrontation stage until the concluding stage.

Furthermore, we can see the children do use the speech acts available to them according to the pragma-dialectical model to try and resolve their arguments. Thus, we can conclude that the process of the children’s arguments is consistent with the pragma-dialectical model. However, perhaps more importantly for the study of child language is that by using the pragma-dialectical model we can see how children use various speech acts and organize their arguments.

Finally, the model is very useful in the understanding of the structure of each child’s thought processes. Therefore, I have concluded that the model can be a valuable tool to help us better understand children’s verbal arguments.

References
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Benoit, P. J. (1992). The use of argument by preschool children: the emergent production of rules for winning arguments. In: W.L. Benoit, A. Hample, & P.J. Benoit (Eds.), Readings in Argumentation (pp. 711-736), New York: Foris Publications.
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Garvey, C. (1993). Diversity in the conversational repertoire: the case of conflicts and social pretending. Cognition and Instruction, 11 (3&4), 251-264.
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Howe, C & D. McWilliam (2001). Peer argument in educational settings: variations due to socioeconomic status, gender and activity context. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 20: 1/2, 61-80.
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Abstract
This paper [i] presents a study of President Putin’s use of the issue of terrorism in public debate in Russia. President Putin’s speech made in the wake of the Beslan tragedy, on September 4th, 2004, is examined. The logico-pragma-stylistic analysis employed in the paper describes communicative strategies of persuasion employed by the speaker and investigates how the Russian leader uses the issue of terrorism to further his political goals. The terrorism debate is analysed within a wider context of democracy and governance debate between the President and the liberal opposition.

Key words: argumentative discourse, rhetoric, pragmatics, pragma-dialectics, fallacies.

This paper is a study of the use of the issue of terrorism in public debate in Russia. It examines President Putin’s address to the nation in the wake of the Beslan terrorist attack, on 4 September 2004.

The study doesn’t pretend to be an exhaustive treatment of the topic; rather it aims to present a logico-pragma-stylistic analysis of the speech, to identify communicative strategies of persuasion employed by the speaker, and to investigate how the Russian leader used the problem of terrorism to further his political goals. The terrorism debate is analysed within a wider context of the democracy and governance debate between the President and a liberal opposition.

In trying to persuade his or her audience a skilled arguer assesses the audience and the issues at hand. When composing a message the speaker takes into account of several factors: the medium of communication (electronic mass media, print media), topic of discussion, audience (gender, level of education, expertise in the topic under discussion, rationality/emotionality, degree of involvement in the problem, level of life threat presented by the problem, etc), nature of the discussion (i.e. whether it is a direct dialogue with an opponent in a studio or an indirect dialogue through electronic or print media), applicable conventions (e.g. parliamentary procedures), and finally a broader, cultural and political context in which communication is taking place including such elements as openness/restrictiveness of the political regime, moral dilemmas and cultural taboos existing in the society, and traditions of conducting discussions inherent in the culture.

The process of assessment and adaptation of the issues to the audience establishes a communicative strategy of persuasion. The key decisions in a communicative strategy are to choose targets to appeal to and to prioritize them. While there are a wide variety of possible targets of appeal, it is possible to identify three major ones, people’s mind, emotions, and aesthetic feeling. An appeal to people’s reason or rational appeal is based on the strength of arguments. Emotional appeals arouse in the reader or listener various emotions ranging from a feeling of insecurity to fear, from a sense of injustice to pity, mercy, and compassion. Aesthetic appeals are based on people’s appreciation of linguistic and stylistic beauty of the message, its stylistic originality, rich language, sharp humour and wit.

Rational appeals can be effective in changing beliefs and motives of the audience because they directly influence human reason, which plays a role in beliefs and motives. Emotional appeals are persuasively effective because they exploit concerns, worries, and desires — the arguer “speaks to people’s hearts”. Aesthetic appeals are persuasively effective when they change people’s attitudes to the message and through the message to its author. By changing attitudes from those of disapproval or reservation to appreciation or even admiration, the author increases the recipient’s susceptibility to persuasion. People will be more willing to accept the arguer’s reasoning after they have experienced the communicator’s giftedness as the author of the message (Goloubev 1999). The three components of the logico-pragma-stylistic analysis roughly correspond to these three major appeals of the argumentative discourse: rational, emotional and aesthetic.

Let us now turn to Putin’s speech. The breakdown into paragraphs follows the version published on the official site of the President of the Russian Federation. The only amendments change the translation of some sentences to make the English follow more closely the original Russian, syntactically and semantically. The speech is divided into explicit parts; paragraphs are numbered to facilitate analysis.

4 September 2004
Moscow, Kremlin

Address by President Vladimir Putin

Part 1

1. Speaking is hard. And painful.

2. A terrible tragedy has taken place in our world. Over these last few days each and every one of us has suffered greatly and taken deeply to heart all that was happening in the Russian town of Beslan. There, we found ourselves confronting not just murderers, but people who turned their weapons against defenceless children.

3. I would like now, first of all, to address words of support and condolence to those people who have lost what we treasure most in this life – our children, our loved and dear ones.

4. I ask that we all remember those who lost their lives at the hands of terrorists over these last days.

Part 2

5. Russia has lived through many tragic events and terrible ordeals over the course of its history. Today, we live in a time that follows the collapse of a vast and great state. A state that, unfortunately, proved unable to survive in a rapidly changing world. But despite all the difficulties, we were able to preserve the core of that giant – the Soviet Union. And we named this new country the Russian Federation.

6. We all hoped for change. Change for the better. But many of the changes that took place in our lives found us unprepared. Why?

7. We are living at a time of an economy in transition, of a political system that does not yet correspond to the state and level of our society’s development.

8. We are living through a time when internal conflicts and interethnic divisions that were once firmly suppressed by the ruling ideology have now flared up.

9. We stopped paying the required attention to defence and security issues and we allowed corruption to undermine our judicial and law enforcement system.

10. Furthermore, our country, formerly protected by the most powerful defence system along the length of its external frontiers overnight found itself defenceless both from the east and the west.

11. It will take many years and billions of roubles to create new, modern and genuinely protected borders.

12. But even so, we could have been more effective if we had acted professionally and at the right moment.

13. In general, we need to admit that we did not fully understand the complexity and the dangers of the processes at work in our own country and in the world. In any case, we proved unable to react adequately. We showed ourselves to be weak. And the weak get beaten.

14. Some would like to tear from us a “fat chunk” of the territory. Others help them. They help, reasoning that Russia still remains one of the world’s major nuclear powers, and as such still represents a threat to them. And so they reason that this threat should be removed.

15. And terrorism, of course, is just an instrument to achieve these aims.

16. As I have said many times already, we have found ourselves confronting crises, revolts and terrorist acts on more than one occasion. But what has happened now, this crime committed by terrorists, is unprecedented in its inhumanness and cruelty. This is not a challenge to the President, parliament or government. It is a challenge to all of Russia. To our entire people. It is an attack on our country.

Part 3

17. The terrorists think they are stronger than us. They think they can frighten us with their cruelty, paralyse our will and sow disintegration in our society. It would seem that we have a choice – either to resist them or to agree to their demands. To give in, to let them destroy and have Russia disintegrate in the hope that they will finally leave us in peace.

18. As the President, the head of the Russian state, as someone who swore an oath to defend this country and its territorial integrity, and simply as a citizen of Russia, I am convinced that in reality we have no choice at all. Because to allow ourselves to be blackmailed and succumb to panic would be to immediately condemn millions of people to an endless series of bloody conflicts like those of Nagorny Karabakh, Trans-Dniester and other well-known tragedies. We should not turn away from this obvious fact.

19. What we are dealing with are not isolated acts intended to frighten us, not isolated terrorist attacks. What we are facing is direct intervention of international terror directed against Russia. A total, cruel and full-scale war that again and again is taking the lives of our fellow citizens.

20. World experience shows us that, unfortunately, such wars do not end quickly. In this situation we simply cannot and should not live in as carefree a manner as previously. We must create a much more effective security system and we must demand from our law enforcement agencies action that corresponds to the level and scale of the new threats that have emerged.

21. But most important is to mobilise the entire nation in the face of this common danger. Events in other countries have shown that terrorists meet the most effective resistance in places where they not only encounter the state’s power but also find themselves facing an organised and united civil society.

Part 4

22. Dear fellow citizens,

23. Those who sent these bandits to carry out this horrible crime made it their aim to set our peoples against each other, put fear into the hearts of Russian citizens and unleash bloody interethnic strife in the North Caucasus. In this connection I have the following words to say.

24. First. A series of measures aimed at strengthening our country’s unity will soon be prepared.

25. Second. I think it is necessary to create a new system of coordinating the forces and means responsible for exercising control over the situation in the North Caucasus. Third. We need to create an effective anti-crisis management system including entirely new approaches to the way the law enforcement agencies work.

26. I want to stress that all of these measures will be implemented in full accordance with our country’s Constitution.

Part 5

27. Dear friends,

28. We all are living through very difficult and painful days. I would like now to thank all those who showed endurance and responsibility as citizens.

29. We were and always will be stronger than them, stronger through our morals, our courage and our sense of solidarity.

30. I saw this again last night.

31. In Beslan, which is literally soaked with grief and pain, people were showing care and support for each other more than ever.

32. They were not afraid to risk their own lives in the name of the lives and peace of others.

33. Even in the most inhuman conditions they remained human beings.

34. It is impossible to accept the pain caused by such loss, but these trials have brought us even closer together and have forced us to re-evaluate a lot of things.

35. Today we must be together. Only so we will vanquish the enemy.

This message was delivered the next day after the end of the standoff between terrorists and Russian security forces during a school siege in Beslan, in Russia’s southern republic of Northern Ossetia. There were more than 1,200 people taken hostage during the three days of terror. Nearly 340 people died, 176 of them children. More than 500 were wounded. A message posted on a pro-Chechen website afterwards confirmed what many believed: that the architect of the violence was Shamil Basaev, the most notorious of the Chechen militants. Russia was in shock.

Obviously such an emotional subject demands an emotional response from the country’s President. Rightly, therefore, the speaker makes an emotional appeal a priority. The message is clearly meant to comfort and uplift, unify and instil confidence in the people. In Part 1 especially and throughout the text, we see expressions of sympathy and condolence. But who must these words comfort and uplift, in whom must they invoke hope and confidence? Who is the audience the speaker addresses his message to? These questions are not as straightforward as they seems. The primary audience is not the people of Beslan whom the terrorist attack immediately affected (although they are mentioned in the concluding part of the speech). The primary audience is all the people of Russia. Even the town of Beslan is referred to as a Russian town rather than a Northern Ossetian town (2), which would have distanced it from the country as a whole. The recipients of the message are referred to as fellow citizens (22), citizens of Russia (23), and friends (27) but never as Ossetians.

This is done to achieve two objectives. On the one hand, it serves to indicate that Russians are a united nation (inspiring confidence). On the other hand, it acts to reinforce the identification of the speaker, the President of the country, with his audience, his fellow countrymen (expression of empathy). Several linguistic devices are employed to produce the said effect. One of them is the repetition of key words or phrases: the noun Russia and adjective Russian are mentioned 9 times in the Russian original text, the personal pronoun we and the possessive pronoun our in different grammatical cases are used a record 33 times. The phrases we must be together,… only together (43) are other key words that are repeated.

An interesting case to examine is the use of the word people, which is found in the text both in the singular and the plural form. Used in the singular (a) people refers to the whole Russian nation: This is not a challenge to the President, parliament or government. It is a challenge to all of Russia, to our entire people (16). In the plural the word peoples refers to various ethnic groups composing the Russian Federation: Those who sent these bandits to carry out this horrible crime made it their aim to set our peoples against each other, put fear into the hearts of Russian citizens and unleash bloody interethnic strife in the North Caucasus (23). In this sentence, Putin takes great care to emphasise that different ethnic groups living in the Northern Caucuses are one nation. He does that by using an umbrella term citizens of Russia to refer to the people belonging to these ethnic groups. The speaker not only talks about a united Russia but emphasizes the country’s greatness: Russia is referred to as the core of a great state, the giant – the Soviet Union (5), as a country protected by the most powerful defence system along the length of its external frontiers (10), as one of the world’s major nuclear powers (14).

Having built up the idea of unity in Part 1 and Part 2, President Putin, at the end of Part 2, introduces one of his main theses: all of Russia is under attack (16). Later he reinforces his claim: What we are dealing with are not isolated acts intended to frighten us, not isolated terrorist attacks. What we are facing is direct intervention of international terror directed against Russia. A total, cruel and full-scale war that again and again is taking the lives of our fellow citizens (19).

The message contains an important juxtaposition: Russia versus her enemies. And that is the only juxtaposition. There is no division within Russia itself: the State and the People are one whole.

Let us examine the rhetorical images of the opposing parties. The speaker creates an image of the Russian people as caring, courageous, humane people and juxtaposes this image with the enemies’ image as not just murderers but murderers of defenceless children (2), terrorists (4, 16, 17, 21, and 27), international terror(ists) (19), and bandits (23). In fact, the speaker ends his message with the word enemy (35), which indicates the importance President Putin attaches to the concept. Describing the enemy the speaker avoids any mention of their demands to withdraw Russian troops from Chechnya. Interestingly, never once was the word Chechnya mentioned in the whole speech. This is done to remove any connection between Beslan and the ongoing conflict in the neighbouring republic. The speaker creates the impression that Northern Caucasus is currently a peaceful region and the bandits who committed the crime strive to spark a bloody feud between the peoples of the region similar to bloody conflicts in Nagorny Karabakh between Azerbaijan and Armenia, in the Trans-Dniestr Republic between this self-proclaimed, unrecognized state and Moldova it had been part of, and other well-known tragedies (18).

Putin’s emphasis is on the international character of the threat that plagues the modern world, hence the mention of the popular term the new threats (20), the reference to other countries in the next paragraph (21), as well the implication that the bandits who carried out the crime did not act on their own accord but were sent by those abroad who masterminded the terrorist attack (23). Even more striking is the reference to world conspiracy of presumably foreign policy-makers who condone terrorism against Russia. Some of them condone it because they see an opportunity to chip away a “fat chunk” of Russian territory, others see in Russia, one of world’s biggest nuclear powers, a threat to them, the threat that has to be removed (14).

As we have noticed before the message is of a highly rhetorical character. It abounds in stylistic devices which enhances its aesthetic appeal. Note the use of repetition of the word we throughout the text, parallelism of expression in Part 2: we live in a time … (5), we all hoped… (6), we are living … (7), we are living … (8), and we stopped… (9). As William Strunk Jr. points out in his book The Elements of Style a good writer should express coordinate ideas in similar form. “This principle, that of parallel construction requires that expressions similar in content and function be outwardly similar. The likeness of form enables the reader to recognize more readily the likeness of content and function” (Strunk and White 1979: 26). Many important statements are expressed in very short sentences, which helps attract the attention of the audience: And the weak get beaten (13); It is an attack on our country (16); Today we must be together. Only so we will vanquish the enemy (35). The speaker deliberately breaks his sentences into two, which again allows him to repeat certain key words, achieve sharpness of expression and increase the aesthetic and emotional effects of the message: Speaking is hard. And painful (1); We all hoped for change. Change for the better (6); This is not a challenge to the President, parliament or government. It is a challenge to all of Russia. To our entire people. It is an attack on our country (16). The latter sequence is also an example of the afore-mentioned stylistic device of parallelism. Another stylistic device employed to enhance the aesthetic appeal is the rhetorical question Why? (6) The question allows the arguer to make a pause and draw the listener’s attention to the points to follow.

Rational appeal appears to be the last target in President Putin’s communicative strategy. This assessment is based on the number of sentences containing argumentation, which is comparatively small. As we have already mentioned, the purpose of the message is not to convince but rather to empathize and explain. As far as specific proposals for a course of action are concerned the speaker makes only a few blueprint points, leaving proper arguments for concrete proposals for a later message.

Having said that, the message does contain a clear line of argument whose purpose is to justify the tough line President Putin is pursuing towards Chechnya and vindicate his actions during the crisis. We have touched upon the first issue already. The ‘other’ clearly receives a biased representation: the perpetrators are not Chechen terrorists or Chechen militants but international terrorists. Hence any connection between Russian actions in Chechnya and the Beslan events is invalidated. Consequently, the Russian authorities are cleared of any blame of at least provoking this atrocity. All the blame stays with the terrorists themselves. This constitutes the first fallacy the discourse contains, the fallacy of shifting the issue. Instead of presenting a true picture the speaker provides an interpretation of the events convenient for him.

Another fallacy the argue commits is that of a false dilemma in which a contrary opposition is presented as a contradiction (van Eemeren, Grootendorst 1992: 190). President Putin suggests in paragraph 21 that there appears to be a choice: to strike back or to give in to the demands of terrorists and to allow the terrorists to destroy and split up Russia, hoping that in the end they will leave Russia alone. In 22, he says, however, that in reality Russia simply has no choice: if the Russian Government gives in to the blackmail of the terrorists and start panicking millions of Russians will be plunged into an endless series of bloody conflicts such as the Armenia-Azerbaijan Karabakh conflict or the Moldova-Dniestr conflict. Therefore, only one avenue is open to Russia – hold strong and defend herself. The false dilemma is contained in the assertion that there are only two options that are in contradictory relation to each other: to give up the fight and let the country be destroyed or continue fighting and keep the country from breaking up. However, as opponents of the war in Chechnya point out there may be a third option, quoting at least one example of a peaceful resolution of a deep-rooted violent conflict through negotiations with terrorists, that of the Northern Ireland settlement. The British Government had made several attempts to enter into negotiations with the IRA before finally reaching a compromise that brought peace to Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland has not broken away from the United Kingdom as a result of this; the UK is still a united country. It is this third way – negotiations with terrorists – that is branded by Putin succumbing to the terrorists’ blackmail.

Another fallacy committed by the author is evading the burden of proof by making an argument immune to criticism. Paragraph 18 concludes with a statement We should not turn away from this obvious fact that means that the point made is an obvious one and needs not be defended. Such a statement violates Rule 2 of the critical discussion rules developed in the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation. “An obvious way of evading one’s own burden of proof is to present the standpoint in such a way that there is no need to defend it in the first place. This can be done by giving the impression that the antagonist is quite wrong to cast doubt on the standpoint or that there is no point in calling it into question. In either case, the protagonist is guilty of the fallacy of evading the burden of proof. The first way of evading the burden of proof amounts to presenting the standpoint as self-evident” (van Eemeren, Grootendorst 1992: 118). As we have already noted, the claim the arguer makes in this paragraph is not self-evident at all.

Another point worth mention in relation to fallacies is a shift of definition in the speech. If we examine paragraph 21 we will see that by the term civil society the speaker understands something different from what his liberal opponents do. For President Putin civil society doesn’t mean an open, self-organized society in which the government is under tighter control of the populace, but rather a society with a vigilant community closely cooperating with law enforcement agencies in preventing terrorist attacks, perhaps through community or vigilante patrols, e.g. the Guardian Angels in New York. Obviously, this shift of definition isn’t a fallacy; rather it is a different interpretation of the term. Thus what would seem at first sight a sign of commitment to democratic values is in effect another argument for the tightening of security in the face of terrorism.

The structure of the argumentation can be represented in the following way:

Let us start our overview of the above figure with an explanation of the different designations applied to the various elements of the argumentation. As you can see from the figure, the argumentation contains two types of statements: expressed statements and implied statements. The latter are divided into Implied Claims, Implied Theses, and Implied Assertions. All these terms basically mean the same thing, an argued statement or point of view, but derive from different traditions of argumentation theory: the terms claim and assertion were introduced by Toulmin working within the framework of Procedural Informal Logic, while the term thesis was introduced by Aristotle belonging to the tradition of Classical Dialectic (van Eemeren et al 2001: 27-47). The purpose of assigning the implicit statements different names is to differentiate them in terms of argumentative importance and the degree of implicitness: ICs are the least apparent statements in the fabric of the message and therefore the justification of ascribing these statements to the speaker can be subjected to doubt more than any other implied statements; while the theses are hierarchically more important than the assertions because the latter are themselves arguments put forward in support of the former. Both the ITs and the IAs are but slightly paraphrased statements that are already available in the discourse.

It is also important to note that the ICs themselves form an argumentation which can be interpreted as leading to any one of them. However, in our opinion the most crucial IC for President Putin is IC1 and thus, it is IC1 that crowns the whole argumentation of the message. As we have already mentioned, Putin is engaged in an implicit debate with those in opposition to his regime over two main accusations. The first accusation concerns his actions during the siege that resulted in so many deaths: had the demands of the terrorists about the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya been met the school would not have been blown up. The second accusation concerns the overall policy in and around Chechnya: it is this policy that has incited the terrorist act. The Russian President’s reasoning develops along two main lines of argument. While the two lines are interwoven, as is shown in Figure 1 in which both lines of argument lead to the same implied claims, and the arguments supporting one line of argument serve the other as well, we can say that the second line of argument is shorter and more clear-cut. It terminates in the text in IT2 and points indirectly to all the ICs but most directly to IC2, IC3 and IC5. The first line of argument is longer and the statements involved in it are better substantiated in the message than those of the first one. The second argumentation terminates in the text in IT1 and while pointing to all the ICs most directly it supports the very important implied claims IC1, IC4 and IC5.

We have already touched upon the evaluation of the two lines of reasoning and pointed out that the first one is weightier than the second. It is precisely the problem with Putin’s argumentation: his apologia is not well enough argued. IC1, IC4 and IC5 are not proven to be the case. They lack solid explicit arguments in the message. However, to make this conclusion we must justify our reconstruction of the implicit elements in the argumentation including the ICs.

In our reconstruction of the structure of the author’s reasoning we followed informal logic’s approach to argument reconstruction, rather than formal logic’s approach, for the following reasons. Van Rees (van Eemeren et al 2001) points out that while both informal logic and formal logic aim to isolate the premises and conclusion of the reasoning underlying an argument, the approaches differ in two major aspects. “First, for informal logicians, deductive validity is no longer necessarily the prime or only standard for evaluating and argument. One of the important issues in informal logic concerns exactly this question of the validity standard to be applied. Most informal logicians hold that some arguments lend themselves to evaluation in terms of deductive validity, while others may be more appropriately evaluated in terms of other standards. This issue has important implications for reconstruction. It means that not all arguments must necessarily be reconstructed as deductively valid. This is especially relevant in the matter of reconstructing unexpressed premises (van Eemeren et al 2001: 180).

For our purposes it means that we don’t seek to fill in missing premises all the time, in all individual arguments (syllogisms) but only where necessary, e.g. in the argumentation consisting of the conclusion 1.1.2 and the premises 1.1.2.1 – IA1.1.2.3. Implied Assertion IA1.1.2.3 is an unexpressed premise that goes together with the explicit premise 1.1.2.3 constituting a single argumentative support for 1.1.2.1. The weakness argument is central to President Putin’s reasoning. In IA1.1.2.3 and especially in the explicit statement And the weak get beaten the speaker emphasizes the necessity of strong action in dealing with Chechen separatists who resort to terrorist attacks on Russian troops and civilians (e.g. in IC3). According to our reconstruction the statement And the weak get beaten lies at the very foundation of a long chain of arguments (1.1.3.1).

“Second, informal logicians view arguments as elements of ordinary, contextually embedded language use, directed by one language user to another in an attempt to convince him of the plausibility (not necessarily the truth) of the conclusion. For reconstruction, this implies taking into account the situated character of the discourse to be reconstructed” (van Eemeren et al 2001: 180).

This aspect is especially important for reconstructing ICs. In doing that we have taken into account not only the immediate context, i.e. the message as it has been spoken, but also a broader context of public debate over Putin’s policy in Chechnya, and therefore, the need for the speaker to present some kind of apologia. The President’s earlier statements concerning terrorism and the conflict in Chechnya (which lies outside the scope of this paper) have informed the above formulations of the ICs.

Let us now return to the pragmatic aspect of our analysis. According to the theory of argumentation there are three types of propositions or statements: propositions of fact, value and policy. “These correspond to the most common sources of controversy:
1. disputes over what happened, what is happening, or what will happen;
2. disputes asserting something to be good or bad, right or wrong, effective or ineffective; and
3. disputes over what should or should not be done” (Rybacki, Rybacki 1191: 27-28).

In pragmatic terms propositions of fact and value fall into the same category of utterances performed by way of assertive speech acts and propositions of policy correspond to the category of utterances performed by way of directive speech acts. The argument structure represented above contains exclusively statements of fact and value, of which the latter are only IC1 and IC2. Meanwhile the message contains utterances performed by way directive and commissive speech acts.

Commissive speech acts express the speaker’s intention to commit themselves to a certain course of action. Such acts include pledges, promises, agreements, disagreements etc. A series of measures aimed at strengthening our country’s unity will soon be prepared (24) and I want to stress that all of these measures will be implemented in full accordance with our country’s Constitution (26) are examples of commissives. We must create a much more effective security system and we must demand from our law enforcement agencies action that corresponds to the level and scale of the new threats that have emerged (20) and I think it is necessary to create a new system of coordinating the forces and means responsible for exercising control over the situation in the North Caucasus (25) are examples of directives. In effect, the above directives are indirect commissives through which President Putin informs the country of his commitment to introduce new measures to strengthen Russia’s security.

The pragmatic analysis shows that most speech acts performed in the discourse are assertive and expressive acts. The former include claims, assertions, and statements and the latter include expressions of sympaphy and condolence. Directives and commissives serve an extremely important purpose of confidence building in the discourse. However seemingly insignificant and secondary among the components of the arguer’s communicative strategy they are still a valuable part of it. With the help of all types of speech acts the speaker achieves his objectives: to explain the reasons of the Beslan tragedy, lift the spirits of the people, vindicate his policy in Chechnya and in the Beslan crisis, and justify the proposed reforms in Russia’s governance. To quote President Putin, “And terrorism, of course, is just an instrument to achieve these aims.”

NOTE
i. Project supported by University of Edinburgh, UK and St. Petersburg State University, Russia.

References
Eemeren, F.H., van & R. Grootendorst (1992). Argumentation, Communication, and Fallacies. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Eemeren, F.H., van & R. Grootendorst (2001). Crucial Concepts in Argumentation Theory. Sic Sat, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Goloubev, V (1999). Looking at Argumentation through Communicative Intentions: Ways to Define Fallacies. In: Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation. Amsterdam: Sic Sat.
Rybacki K., Rybacki D (1991). Advocacy and Opposition. An Introduction to Argumentation. New Jersey.
Strunk, William Jr., White E. B (1979). The Elements of Style. Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.

Analogies are important in invention and argumentation fundamentally because they facilitate the development and extension of thought. (Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric)[i]

In a recent article, A. Juthe notes that “it is not obvious that the most plausible interpretation [of an “argument by conclusive analogy”] is a deductive argument”; reconstructing those arguments as deductive, Juthe suggests, reveals “the perhaps too great influence of the deductive perspective in philosophy” (2005: 23). Juthe goes on to argue that “argument by analogy is a type of argument in its own right and not reducible to any other type” (16). In this paper, I extend Juthe’s analysis of analogical arguments in the interest of supporting an expansion of the category of argumentation in the public sphere beyond the traditional conception that’s valorized in Habermas’s conception of “communicative action.”

Analogical arguments may be assessed as valid, Juthe argues, by virtue of “a correlation or an intuitive connection based on our experience and background knowledge” (15). This conception suggests that there’s a major shift in orientation that’s needed to appropriately assess the value of analogical argumentation. More precisely, there are three shifts in orientation: reversing the relative importance usually allotted to properties in contrast to relations as well as to substances in contrast to events, when constructing arguments, and reversing the relative importance usually allotted to “warrant” in contrast to “background” when using the Toulmin model for argument analysis. Analysis of discussion of topics in public sphere argumentation suggests that we often rely upon analogical reasoning to propose alternatives to views propounded by discourse partners. Thus, examples in that domain inform my sense of the importance of analogical argumentation, background knowledge, temporality (events rather than substances) and relationality (correlations and counterparts, rather than identities) in mundane concept formation. It may be helpful to note that I am not concerned to reject the value of warranted arguments involving properties and substances. Rather, my interest is in valorizing analogical argument as worthy in its own right; as irreducible to other forms; and as a form of argument that bypasses what I suspect is a lurking remnant of that “perhaps too great influence of the deductive perspective in philosophy” that Juthe notices. That same influence, I suggest, may well be efficacious in what I argue elsewhere (Langsdorf 2000, 2002b) is a constrained conception of argumentation that limits, and even distorts, Habermas’s conception of “communicative action.”[ii]

This paper continues my previous work on the ontological aspect of articulation by focusing on analogical reasoning’s revelatory power in argumentation that seeks truth in Heidegger’s sense of “aletheia,” or “uncovering.” But that concept easily suggests a realist, in contrast to constitutive, basis for inquiry. Thus my initial task is to delineate the contrasts between realist and constitutive ontological starting points, in relation to dramatically different expectations as to what analogical arguments may accomplish. My further task concerns the implications that follow from acknowledging that these expectations are embedded in constitutive rather than realist ontologies; namely, we must assess their truth value by standards other than those more traditionally used in argumentation theory. In this paper I pursue only the initial task. The titles I use for the two orientations rely upon John Dewey’s identification of philosophy’s “proper task of liberating and clarifying meanings” as one for which “truth and falsity as such are irrelevant” (1925/1981, p. 307). Yet Dewey modifies that separation of “meanings” and “truth” by his recognition that “constituent truths,” in contrast to “ultimate truths,” rely on a “realm of meanings [that] is wider than that of true-and-false meanings.” My thesis, then, is that analogical reasoning’s value lies in uncovering alternate meanings by using the implicit “background knowledge” that’s intrinsic to any communicative situation. That knowledge includes “intuitive connections” that shape “wider” meanings – those meanings that propose “constituent truths” – and so “facilitate the development and extension of thought.” For that process of developing alternative possibilities and extending conventionally accepted meanings, I suspect, is crucial for that little-understood process we call changing our minds.

I would summarize the contrasts involved in analogical, in contrast to more traditional, argumentation in these terms:[iii]

There may well be an historical shift in interest in, and even preference for, each of these two modes of argumentation. Ronald Schleifer finds that “some time around the turn of the 20th century a new mode of comprehension arose,” which supplemented those “received Enlightenment ideas concerning the nature of understanding and explanation” as culminating in Cartesian ideals of “‘clear and distinct ideas’ and the large assumption, central to Enlightenment science from Newton to Einstein, that the criteria for scientific explanation entailed . . . accuracy, simplicity, and generality” and which understood “reduction and hierarchy to be the ‘methods’ of science and wisdom” (2000, p. 1). The “analogical thinking” that “supplemented without replacing the reductive hierarchies of Enlightenment explanation,” Schleifer continues, relies upon “metonymic series rather than synechdochial hierarchies”; more specifically, it encourages thinking in concrete and particular terms, rather than abstract and universal terms – and thus, valorizes an orientation toward the particular and transient, rather that the universal and stable; toward complexity and plurality, rather than simplicity and univocity (pp. 8-9). “Analogical knowledge,” Schleifer reminds us, “is irreducibly complex. It traffics in similarity and difference that cannot be reduced to one another,” and so “suspends the law of excluded middle” (pp. 14-15). It “embodies the serial work of the negative” in proposing relations, similarities, and differences that may be discerned in “momentary or emergent insights” (p. 24).

The conceptions of knowledge, logic, and argumentation predominant in each of these modes of comprehension rely upon remarkably diverse ontological assumptions. Traditional argumentation correlates well with Schleifer’s characterization of “Enlightenment ideas . . . of understanding and explanation,” which rest upon an assumption that reality – including human beings – is given to inquiry, although physically as well as psychologically malleable. Traditional argumentation thus seeks clarity and consensus in regard to propositions that assert generalizable points of correspondence between claims and reality; between what we know and what is the case for what is, independent of the human interaction with reality that’s a necessary condition for any particular process of inquiry. Jürgen Habermas adopts this mode of argument in his delineation of communicative action as a process of representation and transmission. What’s implied here is the presence of a given – whether objects, events, or sense-data – that is identified in language. Communicative action’s task, then, is accurate representation of that given, in language that can be used in deductive or inductive reasoning toward an epistemic goal. This is so whether that goal is sought through speakers’ communicative action engaged in cognitive efforts toward accurate knowledge of the natural world, or interactive efforts toward correct interpersonal establishment of our social world, or expressive efforts toward truthful disclosure of their subjectivity.[iv]

Without requiring rejection of that conception of knowing and being, analogical thinking – particularly as carried out in analogical argumentation that marshals premises in support of a conclusion – seeks to comprehend the complexity of matters. Within this alternate mode of comprehension, inquiry is oriented toward uncovering how matters might be, rather than positing propositions that correspond to what things are. A multiplicity of meanings emerge in the interaction between (in Kenneth Burke’s terms) “beings that by nature respond to symbols” (1962, p. 567) and the elements that engage those beings’ attention. For those beings – we who essentially and extensively engage in communicative action – evoke an apparently inexhaustible wealth of perspectives on, and ways of assigning meaning to, elements that engage our attention. In so doing, we constitute a multiplicity of ways that matters could present themselves to us and ways that we, and they, could be related. Comprehending human being as using our symbolic capacities in constitutive, rather than representational, ways enables us to recognize the goal of analogical argument as inducing cooperation among distinctly diverse beings who devise ways of signifying what engages their particular attention, from within their particular perspectives and in relation to their particular goals. The meanings that emerge from the interaction between symbolically active beings and their environments range in plausibility from possibility to probability, and each of us seeks to induce others’ consideration of, and even, identification with, those meanings that win our adherence – even, transiently.

Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, in what may be the earliest explicit consideration of distinct ontological assumptions underlying rhetorical theory, emphasizes that a focus, such as Burke’s, on human beings’ symbolic abilities encourages investigation of “the rhetorical dimension present in all language use” (1970, p. 105) rather than delineating discourse that articulates a perspective as worthy of consideration as either “logical argumentation” or “rhetorical persuasion.” Contrary to ontological assumptions that understand human being as primarily rational or volitional, cognitive or affective – and so, inspire rationalistic or behavioristic theories of human being – she proposes understanding human being as intrinsically symbolic. She grants that doing so sacrifices the “neatness and order” offered by the “analytical and empirical perspectives” adopted by (formal) logic and (physical) science. What’s gained, I would add, is appreciation of the argumentative dimension of communicative action as informed by analogical as well as propositional characterizations. Further, what’s enabled is recognition, in Thomas Farrell’s words, that “every major institutional practice associated with a vital public sphere . . . seems to embody the creative strain of reason which we call rhetorical art” (1993, p. 237). That “creative strain of reason” seems to me to be especially exercised when we devise analogies to argue for how things both are and are not related to other things.

We can now look more closely at some examples that illustrate how analogies work to develop and expand thought. Analogies, in contrast to propositions, persistently signify both what is and what is not; or, what may be and what may not be the case. Assessing the value of a particular analogy requires us to look beyond the concepts that it joins via tentative and transient relation in a particular situation. But this looking “beyond” the particular situation in which the analogy is proposed involves looking into the background and goals that may be operative in proposing that analogy, while refraining from positing causal efficacy between background and analogical relation, or between analogical relation and goals – and also, refraining from positing general (even, universal) hierarchical structures.

Our first example is provided in the film, entitled Capote, that focuses on Truman Capote’s book, In Cold Blood, in the context of documenting his life. Gerald Clarke, author of the biography that provided the basis for the film, asked Capote about his feelings for Perry Smith – one of the two men executed for the murder that is the central event in Capote’s book. In the film, the actor who plays Capote, Philip Seymour Hoffman, replies by suggesting both similarity and difference: “It’s almost like we grew up in the same house, and I went out the front door and he went out the back.” I reconstruct the analogy implicated in this response in order to direct our attention to the background knowledge – which may well be culturally specific – that supplies its force:

(1) Socially acceptable character : socially unacceptable character : : front door : back door
(e.g., author)                                      (e.g., murderer)

Empathy (an expressive attitude; Habermas’s third category) is articulated here not by approximating measurement of a property (such as “I felt a strong sense of empathy with Smith”) but by identifying a process (leaving the shared house by doors that connote positive and negative relation with the inhabitants) that reaches into another domain for explanatory efficacy. The terms that are used evoke our understanding, which may be quite vague, of growing up within the same household (i.e., environment), but leaving that physical and social commonality in either a positive (author) or negative (murderer) way. Thus the response sketches a connection, rather than describing a propositional state of affairs, and so may invite reflection on the relation between upbringing and character development.

A second example relies on patterns of personality development within social interaction (Habermas’s second category) to imply something about the nature of an entity (Habermas’s first category). The source is an editorial in The New York Times on the topic of Vice-President Cheney’s shooting accident, which wounded a fellow bird-hunter. The editorial writer articulates a less-than-complimentary assessment of Mr. Chaney with these words: “The vice president appears to have behaved like a teenager who thinks that if he keeps quiet about the wreck, no one will notice that the family car is missing its right door” (2005, February 14). I would reconstruct the analogy here so as focus on one element in background knowledge that’s highlighted – and which may generate greater trans-cultural efficacy than the first example:

(2) Vice President : immature person : : keep quiet about a misdeed : no one will notice it

The analogical relation here is provided by only one element in the target – Mr. Cheney’s behavior in this incident, but not his size, or age, or particular office – in relation an element in the source – practices in which we ourselves, or others in our experience, may have engaged. Such first-person or hearsay evidence provides supporting, although uncertain, evidence: Sometimes, although not certainly, what remains unspoken remains unnoticed. Here also, understanding comes by way of sketching a process (remaining quiet about an accident) and relation (vice president or teenager to audience, whether immediate family or voting public) rather than through describing a propositional state of affairs, and so may invite reflection – in this case, on the possibility of recognizing other immature actions by this, or other, government figure.

A third example relies upon actions by animals that may well be less familiar than are the positive and negative associations of front and back doors, or the wishful behavior of immature persons. The source is a news article in The New York Times (February 14, 2006) that reports on the growth of online real estate transactions. In the context of responding to a reporter’s questions concerning the extent of change involved in real estate services provided online, rather than in face-to-face communication with a real estate salesperson, Glenn Kelman, chief executive of Redfin.com, a new online real estate agency, is quoted as recognizing “that change might be difficult . . . We are like the penguins on the edge of an iceberg when no one wants to jump in first. Redfin in going in first.” But, Mr. Kelman continued, “Maybe that isn’t such a good analogy. The first penguin in usually gets eaten by sharks or something.” I would reconstruct this analogy so as to focus on the speaker’s uncertainty about an element in the natural world (that is, an aspect of Habermas’s first category) that seems to instigate immediate reassessment and thus retraction:

(3) Redfin (online agency) : real estate industry : : first penguin into water : flock of penguins

The analogical relation here is one that’s immediately re-evaluated by the speaker, who shifts the relation involved from one of adventuresome or brave action to that of foolish and even self-destructive action, and so indicates unwillingness to adhere to, or continue to identify with, his own proposal for relation based in similar action. Here again, one element – this time, an explicitly temporal one, being first into a situation – provides the basis of similarity. When that element is re-assessed negatively, the speaker rapidly retracts the analogy. A listener may, however, wish to retain the analogy in order to suggest that Mr. Kelman’s firm is, so to speak, shooting itself in the foot by taking the lead in bringing about the demise of its own industry.

The last example is far more contentious. The source is a response from Ward Churchill, a professor at the University of Colorado, to criticism of his characterization of certain persons who died in the attack on the World Trade Center as “little Eichmanns” because of their jobs as “technocrats of empire” within the U.S. economy.[v] He compared their employment to Adolph Eichmann’s job within the Nazi economy, which involved “ensuring the smooth running of the infrastructure that enabled the Nazi genocide.” I reconstruct his argument in order to focus on what appears to be the crucial element, the process of “enabling”:

(4) WTC “technicians” : Eichmann : : enabling U.S. aggression : enabling Nazi aggression

By extension, Churchill continues, “American citizens now” are analogous to “good Germans of the 1930s & ’40s” in regard to a set of practices that constitute only one element of their being: U.S. citizens’ “complicity” in accepting the consequences of government standards for “‘justified . . . collateral damage'” (namely, “economic sanctions” leading to the death of civilians) which he proposes is analogous to German citizens’ complicity in accepting the consequences of Nazi racial standards (namely, genocide).

The controversy provoked by Professor Churchill’s analogies illustrates the intense complexity of language choice, and thus, of communicative action, in comparison to the relative simplicity of Habermas’s fourth category, language. That is: in contrast to the validity claim of truthfulness in regard to disclosing one’s subjectivity, or rightness in regard to establishing interpersonal relations, or truth in regard to representing nature, Habermas links language to a validity claim of “comprehensibility.” Yet there is an intellectual and emotional space that separates comprehensible linguistic formulations such as propositions that can be assessed through traditional standards for argumentation, from communicated symbolic action that is evaluated by the standards of analogical argumentation. The importance of that space is suggested by Churchill’s reminder, in the response from which I take the particular terms I’ve quoted here, that his “analysis . . . presents questions that must be addressed in academic and public debate.” That is, he is sketching a perspective that invites – even demands – reflection on the extent of similitude between the processes and events he evokes from our background knowledge in relation to certain current events, rather than proposing a description of any entity.

Earlier, I quoted Juthe’s characterization of analogical argumentation as that which proposes “a correlation or an intuitive connection based on our experience and background knowledge” (2005, p. 15). The relatively acceptable analogy underlying Churchill’s contentious claims relies upon background knowledge that is at least vaguely familiar to generations not far removed from an agricultural economy: chickens let out into the barnyard will return to their nests. Also, it evokes language familiar to adherents of major faith traditions in the U.S., who have some degree of adherence to the principle that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, or, that human beings reap what they sow. More abstractly stated, actors cannot expect to avoid the consequences of their actions. More contentiously than in the first three examples we’ve considered, Churchill’s argument, by weaving analogies together, uncovers connections, relations, and correlations that may be as resistant to complete rejection as they are reminiscent of background knowledge to which we give implicit, and perhaps only partial, adherence.

In contrast to epistemic orientations that traditionally valorize clear and distinct ideas, articulated in propositional form and evaluated by means of traditional logic, analogical argumentation is ontologically efficacious. This is not to say that communicative action creates a natural, or social, or even individual state of affairs. It is to propose that analogical argumentation performs the constitutive function that Lloyd Bitzer identified with rhetoric’s functioning as “a mode of altering reality, not by the direct application of energy to objects, but by the creation of a discourse which changes reality through the mediation of thought and action” (1968, p. 3). Or, to return to the quotation from Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca with which we began: analogical argumentation, and particularly the type of analogy that Juthe calls “incomplete” – which would include the four examples we’ve considered here, all of which rely on highlighting one element in the many that constitute any event – enables the “development and extension of thought” by (in Juthe’s words) by foregrounding elements that “determine . . . only probably and not definitely,” and so evoke “only a correlation or an intuitive connection, based on our experience and background knowledge” (2005, pp. 14-15).

NOTES
i. The epigraph is from page 385.
ii. The particular impetus for these remarks on the nature and value of analogical argumentation, by way of reconsidering the ontological assumptions underlying diverse assessments of that value, comes from an event within the contemporary US-American educational context. The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) is created and administered by a private corporation, The College Board, and used by most US colleges and universities (with diverse levels of reliance) for determining admission to their institutions. The 2005 edition of the SAT replaced the segment that measured analogical reasoning ability with an expanded segment the measures writing skills. I have argued elsewhere (Langsdorf 2005) that argumentation theorists and teachers ought to join their colleagues in composition in urging reconsideration of that change. In this paper, I focus on a question that’s implied by that proposal: just why is analogical argumentation valuable for communicative action? In other words, my focus here is on the value of analogical argumentation for the informal logic-in-use in mundane communication, in contrast to the formal logic that characterizes abstract conceptualization.
iii. By “traditional” I mean deductive and inductive – but also, for some theorists, abductive and conductive – argumentation that is particularly relevant to work in the formal and physical sciences (e.g., mathematics, logic, physics), in contrast to work in the human sciences and humanities (e.g. rhetoric, literary studies, cultural studies). The social sciences (e.g., anthropology, communication studies, sociology) encompass (with diverse predominance in particular times and places) orientations toward both categories. In articulating these contrasts, I rely upon Chaim Perelman’s analysis in The New Rhetoric and The Realm of Rhetoric as well as on Kenneth Burke’s A Grammar of Motives and A Rhetoric of Motives
iv. I refer here to the four-dimensional analysis of communicative action delineated in Habermas (1984: 238) for discussion, see Langsdorf (2000b). Here is Habermas’s diagram (slightly modified) of the ontological dimensions or domains in which communicative action is operative:

v. The fullest development of Churchill’s argument is in his widely circulated essay (Churchill, 2005) although the responses to it may well rely upon excerpts from that source or the number of articles and speeches he has given which repeat the contentious phrases.

References
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groundup.org.za. November 2014. The 7th annual Irene Grootboom Memorial Dialogues, which explore the continuation of Cape Town’s “spatial apartheid”, are underway. On Tuesday night, the focus was on the spate of shack evictions around the city this year, and the correlation between poor, densely populated areas and traffic deaths and education outcomes.

Being poor and living in densely populated informal settlements in Khayelitsha increases your risk of being killed by a car and of your children having poor education outcomes.

These were the conclusions, illustrated by statistics, of two speakers at this year’s Irene Grootboom Memorial Dialogues, hosted by the Social Justice Coalition and the African Centre for Cities.
The Constitutional Court ruled in favour of shackdweller and housing activist Irene Grootboom in 2000. The landmark judgment outlined the duties of the state in terms of the right of access to adequate housing in section 26 of the Constitution. For instance, the judgment held that the state must provide emergency shelter for those “with no access to land, no roof over their heads, and who are living in intolerable conditions or crisis situations.”
The lectures are held annually in memoriam of Grootboom who died in 2008, without having received a house.

Read more: http://groundup.org.za/link-between-poor-housing