It is difficult to overstate the symbolic significance of Ernesto “Che” Guevara in Latin America. One may doubt Fidel Castro’s eulogistic characterization of him as the “model of a human being who does not belong to our time but to the future,” “one without a single stain on his conduct” (quoted in Anderson, 1997, 741). After all, Che died a martyr for the ideals of the Cuban Revolution, and the coincidence of Castro’s personal and political interests with Che’s canonization may be taken as an indictment of his motives in such statements. Less easily dismissed, however, is the astonishing extent of Che’s influence outside of Cuba. Rivaled only, perhaps, by José Martí, Che has become emblematic of socialist revolution, guerilla warfare, and lived commitment to political ideals. His fame is by no means limited to Latin America: A survey of U.S. university students taken the year after his death found Che to be the figure with whom most identified, more so than with any North American political figure or other media personality (A special kind of rebellion, 1969, 70-71). Around the same period, when students in Paris took over their dormitory in a social protest, they named the building “Che Guevara” for the same reason, Julio Cortázar (1969) would later write, “that leads thirst to water or man to woman” (94). Nor has this influence diminished with time. Biographer Jon Anderson (1997) writes of his surprise at discovering the veneration lent Guevara in contemporary contexts ranging from Burma and El Salvador to the Western Sahara and Muslim Afghanistan (xiv).  Indeed, this and other indications confirm Mary-Alice Water’s (1994) opinion that Che’s socialist perspectives and lessons regarding political power have acquired an even greater relevance in the years since his death.

This essay considers the lasting achievement of Che’s (1965) essay, “Socialism and the New Man in Cuba” (Socialismo y El Hombre Nuevo en Cuba). Widely regarded as his most famous work (e.g., Anderson, 1997, 636; Castaneda, 1997, 304), the essay advances Guevara’s conception of revolutionary ideology and the role of the individual. Following its publication in March of 1965, it was to become the central text of the international politics of the revolutionary left in the sixties (Taibo, n.d., 510), and its central figure, the “New Man,” would achieve lasting recognition as a Marxist political ideal. In this essay we argue that the success of the essay in significant measure is owing to the rhetorical virtuosity with which Guevara combined abstract political theory and familiar conceptual metaphor. We will demonstrate through a careful reading of the text that an epistolic framework enabled the articulation of three major metaphorical systems: Journey, Construction, and Oppression. These metaphors function within the text not as simple heuristics or explanatory aids, but as literal instantiations of Guevara’s political theory. In what follows, we will consider not only the metaphors and their function, but also the ethical implications of such argument by analogy.

1. The Essay and Its Context
The broad outlines of Che Guevara’s life provide an essential backdrop to understanding the essay. Born Ernesto Guevara de la Serna in 1928 to wealthy Argentine parents, Che spent his youth between Rosario, Buenos Aires, and Alta Gracia, Argentina. At the age of 20, he entered the University of Buenos Aires in pursuit of a medical degree. He interrupted his studies two years later to make a solo trip 4,000 miles throughout northern Argentina on a moped, followed by a journey undertaken with a companion around the entire South American continent. After graduating from medical school in 1953, Guevara conducted a second trip during which he became convinced of the need for radical political reform. He joined Fidel Castro the following year in Mexico and began training for an invasion of Cuba. The only foreigner in the group, Guevara was initially included because of his medical skills and developing friendship with Castro. However, “El Medico” quickly achieved respect for his revolutionary ideals and was named head of personnel at the training camp in Chalco, Mexico prior to the invasion. In 1959, following three years of guerilla warfare and the successful overthrow of Dictator Fulgencio Batista, Guevara served in a series of roles in the newly-established revolutionary government, including director of the national bank, minister of industry, and Cuban ambassador. In 1965 he left Cuba to incite socialist reform abroad, and participated in armed struggle in the African Congo. Upon returning to Cuba, he determined to organize a series of guerilla factions throughout Latin America. He was captured and executed near the town of Vallegrande in Bolivia in 1967 at the age of 39.

“Socialism and the New Man in Cuba” was written during Guevara’s travels through Africa early in 1965. The work took the form of a letter addressed to his friend and compañero Carlos Quijano, the editor of the Uruguayan weekly Marcha. In it, Guevara meditated on the tension between theory and praxis, and argued for a series of propositions. Using Cuba as exemplar, he developed first a narrative of social development in which an individual leader – namely, Fidel Castro – initiated revolutionary consciousness. This consciousness led to guerilla struggle in which a vanguard mobilized, engaged in armed conflict, and served as a catalyst for expanding socialist commitment. From this first “heroic” period emerged the model of the “man of the future,” a revolutionary totally committed to the cause, capable of “exceptional deeds of valor and sacrifice” (198), and defined by that agency and commitment. The relationship between leaders and followers in a socialist system was described to be one of “dialectical unity” (200), and contrasted with the mass exploitation by leaders in capitalistic systems.
Turning from the Cuban narrative, Che next considered the nature of individual in relation to the state. Sustaining the individual, referred to as the “New Man,” and his revolutionary commitment in daily life and ordinary affairs represented one of the fundamental challenges for socialism. The New Man was always in the making, Guevara argued, “since the process [that creates him] goes forward hand in hand with the development of new economic forms” (203). This process was based in direct education and an ongoing commitment to action. Advancement was linked to conscious engagement in revolutionary change and willing participation in production. In sum, the New Man was educated to “total consciousness as a social being” for the “reconquering” of human nature, thus achieving the capacity to fulfill all aspects of social duty (205-206).

In the final portion of the essay, Che attended to the risks of socialism, noting the dangers of dogmatic extremes, “cold” scholasticism, and “blunted” revolutionary zeal (212). These dangers, and the inevitable sacrifices en route to achieving social freedom, he argued, were justified by the social and individual achievement of the New Man. The essay concluded with a series of axioms drawn from the completed argument: Socialists are more complete and freer than capitalists; the process of achieving socialism is well under way; the costs of achievement are familiar and welcome; the New Man is constantly remade in the process of social transformation; the individual plays a vital role in mobilizing the masses; the vanguard, the Party, represents the “best among the good”; youth are the promise and hope of socialism. He ended the work with the familiar charge, “patria o muerte”! (Homeland or death!) (214).
The nature and success of Che’s arguments become apparent when we examine his essay in light of its epistolary structure, its dependence on testimonial narrative and the metaphoric conceptions that establish Che’s position on socialist revolution. It is to that examination that we now turn.

2. Metaphoric Analysis
We assume what Kenneth Burke has termed a dramatic approach to language, assuming that language is a part of symbolic action as it “necessarily directs the attention into some channels rather than others” (Burke, 1968, 45). As a form of symbolic action, language is at once a reflection, selection, and deflection of reality (Burke, 1968, 45). In the act of naming, all language selects a portion of the thing to be described, a boundary that limits that which is named and in its selectivity it deflects the reader/hearer from other possibilities. As such, language serves as a frame or terministic screen, focusing our attention, masking certain things, highlighting others, and suggesting, precisely because it is not neutral, a program of action.
Metaphors extend the linguistic potential of definition as they assert a new perspective, and expand the concept of definition. “Indeed, the metaphor always has about it precisely this revealing of hitherto unsuspected connectives which we may note in the progressions of a dream. It appeals by exemplifying relationships between objects which our customary rational vocabulary has ignored” (Burke, 1965, 90). In this fashion, the construct offers us perspective by incongruity and argument by analogy as it asks us, in Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) terms, to “understand and experience one kind of thing in terms of another” (5). The danger inherent in this process is literalization, wherein the analogous similarity becomes an identification, a perceived inherent characteristic. Instead of analogy, literalized metaphors assume the role of proof and reify the suasory interests of those who use the terms. They constrain our conceptual imagination because the metaphor is no longer a figure but a taken-for-granted as accurate description or framework for interpretation. What begins as a linguistic figure becomes ingrained thought and incipient action.
Literalized metaphor, in Burke’s conception, becomes the motive for particular action. When an argument for socialist revolution literalizes capitalism as an oppressive master and the worker as indentured, then freedom is only possible when the capitalist system is overthrown. In literalizing the relationship of bondage between an economic system and those who work in the system, the metaphor hides any aspects of capitalist enterprise even those which may be positive by supporting economic development and its subsequent rewards. Literalized metaphors highlight those analogous characteristics that further the claim and hide other characteristics which might challenge the assertion.

2.1 The Epistolary Metaphor
The essay’s frame as correspondence evokes an epistolary function. The familiar salutation, “Dear compañero,” establishes an intimate tone at the outset. This tone is strengthened by an apology for the lateness of the letter and reference to a promise made to write, and by the use of the familiar voice. In addressing subsequent topics such as the bureaucratization of the revolution, art and education, and the critique of capitalism, Guevara stressed the informality of his arguments by calling them “notes” and by emphasizing that they had been written “in the course of [a] trip through Africa” (197). Although he acknowledged that his theme of socialism and man in Cuba “may be of interest to Uruguayan readers” (197), the work retains the intimate tone of one friend addressing another.
This frame poses a choice for the reader: The work may be read as an objective text, a private letter written from one person to another. From this perspective, the essay is of little interest aside from the voyeuristic glimpse into Guevara’s life that it provides. Alternatively, the reader may assume the perspective of the friend to whom the work is addressed, and so metaphorically treat the letter as one’s own. The work clearly privileges the second of these options by providing attractive tokens of warmth and familiarity with virtually no specific references to the particulars of the relationship that might serve as jarring reminders that the reader is, in fact, a stranger to Guevara.
For the reader, certain expectations are borne from the epistolary structure, since a letter expresses a desire of talking to an absent being, and provides us with the illusion of being able to communicate, to dialogue. In her study on epistolary fictions, Linda S. Kauffman asserts that “epistolary texts combine elements usually regarded as opposites: discourse and narrative, spontaneity and calculation” (26). Guevara was thus able to employ a series of strategies that are usually separated because of their contradictory nature; his essay brings forth all of these rhetorical devices and puts them at the service of his argument in defense of socialism.

Che frames his letter as a narrative, “[l]et me begin by broadly sketching the history of our revolutionary struggle before and after the taking of power” (197). Cuba becomes the scene for his narrative, the New Man is the protagonist, and the initial plot a disaster story that was turned around when the revolution put its trust in the New Man, when “the triumph or failure of the mission entrusted to him depended on his capacity for action” (198). Guevara traces two moments in the emergence of socialist struggle: on one front the guerrillas serve as a vanguard for a journey from alienation and subjugation to liberation; a second and more important moment takes place with the awakening of “the still sleeping mass” (198) and its transformation into the New Man.
In this narrative he resourcefully employs several epistolary strategies; he seduces the readers by the lure of becoming the New Man of the future who will fulfill the potential of “a dual existence as a unique being and as a member of society” (201). The seductiveness of this promise lies in the fact that humankind has its destiny in its own hands while at the same time its most altruistic feelings are awakened. Because this man is an “unfinished product” for the seduction to be effective we have “to compete fiercely with the past” (201) and consciously divest ourselves of an outmoded and destructive way of seeing the individual in relation to society; only then do we break “the chains of alienation” (205). He consistently throughout his essay points out capitalism as an opiate that “lulls the masses, since they see themselves as being oppressed by an evil against which it is impossible to struggle” (203).
Once the reader has been seduced by the image of the New Man one must be persuaded into action. Although Che is exposing his opinion and attacking a capitalist position frontally, he is not defending his position because he is writing for a sympathetic audience, a friend who shares his convictions. Formal support and citation are unnecessary, even inappropriate, in a letter between friends; so Guevara avoids the obligation to provide the sort of grounding for his argument that would be required in other contexts.

In place of the need for such formal grounding, the epistolary framework asserts the credibility of testimonial. Che’s facility with the genre is clear by this point in time. He had kept careful journals of his travels throughout Latin America as a young man, and later rewrote these into a testimonial travelogue. This habit would be continued in his Bolivian Diary, a clear example of the so called literatura de campaña (Battlefield Literature), a forerunner of the testimonial genre. In such work he takes the role of not only a witness but also an actor, a comandante who has actively constructed socialism in Cuba and who after his tour through Africa feels the urgency of solidarity, of presenting a united front against imperialism, and of the need for a New Man now more than ever. Thus, he stands for the collective memory and identity of revolution. These characteristics definitely echo George Yúdice’s definition of testimonial literature as:
An authentic narrative, told by a witness who is moved to narrate by the urgency of a situation (e.g., war, oppression, revolution, etc.). Emphasizing popular oral discourse, the witness portrays his or her own experience as a representative of a collective memory and identity. Truth is summoned in the cause of denouncing a present situation of exploitation and or oppression or exorcising and setting aright official history (Gugelberger and Kearney, 1991, 4).
By employing an epistolary metaphor and testimonial qualities, Guevara develops arguments without the need for formal proof, advanced as by a friend, and dictated by his personal experience. Within this framework, a series of additional metaphorical perspectives are subsequently enacted.

2.2 The Journey Metaphor
It is perhaps not a coincidence that Che chooses to make extensive use of the metaphor of a voyage/trip to symbolize his quest for revolution while “in the course of [his] trip to Africa” (196). The man who loves to travel as his Motorcycle Diaries show, and believes in taking the revolution wherever he goes finds in the journey metaphor its most appropriate expression. The journey metaphor is part of a literary tradition based on the quest. Che seems to reinforce this imagery and as the chivalric men before him sets off on his journey. At the end of this trip, however, is not the heavenly damsel of courtly love but the New Man waiting, eager to construct a new society. Another source for this imagery might well be his own guerilla background. That is, Che relies on the imagery of movement, of laying down the path, of being a vanguard or leader to the New Man and socialism. What we see in common with these images is the importance of leadership, of the knight or guerrilla actively seeking to fulfill a dream; there is no space for passivity, because the New Man must be built (202), must be completed (201). As part of this strong commitment, this vision for change, incentives are important to mobilize the masses (202).
In the first half of the speech, Che conceptualizes the revolution as a journey in which capitalism and oppression lie behind the travelers in the wrong turns and blind alleys; socialism and freedom lie ahead. The move away from capitalism is the beginning of the journey: “There remains a long way to go” that will not be an easy journey; “the temptation is very great to follow the beaten track of material interest” (202). If Cuba and other nations try to follow the capitalist path, to use the remnants of capitalism they will be led into “a blind alley. And you wind up there after having traveled a long distance with many crossroads, and it is hard to figure out just where you took the wrong turn” (202). The road to socialist success will lead to rewards: “[t]he prize is the new society in which men will have different characteristics: the society of communist human beings” (204). But Guevara warns his readers that the journey is “beset with perils” and that although the “reward is seen in the distance; the way is lonely” (201). Uneducated individuals “take the solitary road” and have a “tendency to walk separate from the masses accompanying them” (203); those who are educated into the value of socialism understand their role as the “motor” of society. The masses recognize that the “road is long and full of difficulties. At times we lose our way and must turn back” (204). But Guevara metaphorically holds out the promise of a better life if the journey is completed.

The challenge in this road trip is to discover the right pace for conducting the journey. Che writes “At times we go too fast and separate ourselves from the masses. Sometimes we go too slow and feel the hot breath of those treading at our heels” (204); but always advocates moving ahead, “clearing the way” (204) and advancing rapidly. The task for the emerging socialist nations is to find the right road, the one cleared by the vanguard group, and “not wander from the path” (213) if they want to “create the man of the 21st century” (209) and flesh out the “skeleton of our complete freedom” (213), which the socialist revolution has already formed. Cuba is the case study, the ground for envisioning the proper road, the rejected paths and destinations and the ultimate destination, a place of individual freedom and integration.
Movement, struggle, initiative are key words Che uses to depict the process of constructing a new society. Through incentives that must be both moral and material, education will be the means of raising the consciousness that will become the motor of society (204). Movement as the metaphor that captures the shift from the old to the new is pervasive throughout the imagery of the road and travel. Although he uses all of these metaphors of movement and energy, Che realizes that this activity to promote real change must go through its “institutionalization as a harmonious set of channels, steps, restraints and well-oiled mechanisms that facilitate the advance” (204). It is at this point that he introduces the element of leadership or what he calls the vanguard, those individuals who “have their eyes fixed on the future and its reward” (204), and who are part and parcel of the masses and “walk in unity” (204) with them. The vanguard is made up of the individuals who perceive clearly the values of socialism, which are only partially understood by the masses. Furthermore, these are the individuals who lead by example, whose ideology is advanced, whose sacrifices enable the masses to see the path clearly.

2.3 The Construction Metaphor
Since Guevara acknowledges that, even in the case of Cuba, the “institutionalization of the revolution has not been achieved” (205), the predominance of a journey metaphor turns into a construction metaphor, emphasizing the need for building the socialist society at the end of the road. It is in enacting the socialist journey that both the New Man and the envisioned society are built. The New Man can be “built without any of the old vestiges” (210) from “malleable clay” (210); and this “basic clay of our work is the youth” (213). Che’s passion and belief in youth stems directly from one of his intellectual heroes, the Cuban Jose Martí. Martí in his well known essay, “Our America” presents a plan for ideological and cultural independence for the region based on an original education of the future generations. Che also is aware of the reproductive nature of education as it certainly reinforces the values and attitudes of society. Thus a socialist education would be based on the idea of preparing young people to live and serve their society and to become a conscious ideological instrument at the service of socialism. Thus, this education to be truly socialist must promote change. Undoubtedly these ideas fueled the much successful 1961 Cuban literacy campaign which not only succeeded because of its Marxist foundations but because it was based on “ a spontaneous response to the experience of teaching and learning” (Mtonga 4). Some like Kozol even argue that it was through the experience of this campaign that Cubans were transformed into communists.
Continuing with the construction metaphor, for Che there are “two pillars of the construction of socialism: the education of the new man and the development of technology” (207). This latter pillar, technology, lays the “basic foundation” (207) while educating the New Man creates a “superstructure” (207) that will topple the “complicated scaffolding” (207) of capitalism. Che’s argument is that socialism requires both “new material foundations” and “build[ing] the new man” (202) through education, hard work, and sacrifice, despite the “difficulties of construction” (210).

2.4 The Oppression Metaphor
We have, throughout this essay, referred to Guevara’s characterization of the New Man who can be shaped in the process of socialism and who actively shapes him/herself. This ideal person is contrasted with the oppressed individual, an argument that relies on a cluster of metaphors evoking bondage. Capitalism is personified as a slave master who controls via “a pitiless law” which is “blind” and “invisible” to the masses, yet serves as an “umbilical cord, the law of value” which “acts upon all aspects of one’s life, shaping its course and history” (200). Capitalism is imaged as exploitative; as a system that “weakens the combativity of the masses in imperialist countries” (201) and the masses in this argument are depicted as seeing “themselves as being oppressed by an end against which it is impossible to struggle” (203). Capitalism turns the masses “into a docile servant” (207). Its technology, although necessary to socialism as well, is envisioned as a machine that subdues anyone who rebels against the capitalist ideology and except for a few whose “exceptional talents” allow them to “create their own work” the masses “become shamefaced hirelings or are crushed” (207).
The dialectic between oppressor and oppressed is an idea that is pervasive throughout the essay. Che clearly identifies the capitalist system as responsible for indenturing the masses. He uses a series of zoomorphic metaphors to describe the animalistic condition of humankind; he even refers to those who rejected the revolution and abandoned the island as having been “completely housebroken” (208). People under capitalism are like sheep (199) because they do not think, are like wolves (201) because they are competing against each other in a selfish and individualistic manner, and are like monkeys “performing pirouettes” (208) for individual honors. All of these metaphors reflect the sickness of the system and confirm the dehumanization, the lack of awareness fostered by capitalism, and the loneliness resulting from the commodification of the human being. The system, however, continues to entice people who have lost their consciousness and have believed the myth of the self-made man and the idea that people who behave will be rewarded in the next world. It is precisely this idea which liberation ideology would address as one of their main concerns in their choice for the poor.

Given the oppressiveness of the existing system, what does Che see as the key to breaking the chains of oppression? For the masses to reject capitalism and then recognize and embrace socialism they must go through a process of education. As Paulo Freire argues in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed, it is through education that they realize the duality between being and seeming to be. The internalization of a way of life that is assumed as the only possible one (Che claims that the laws of capitalism “are invisible to ordinary people” (200)) leads the ‘seeming to be’ person to the understanding that to be less oppressed means to become an oppressor. This explains, according to Guevara, how the working class lost its internationalism as they became accomplices in the exploitation of the dependent countries. Hope to change this situation comes from the New Man, who  is the one who rises above, is not afraid of embracing his true self and of being free; freedom comes with becoming a vanguard of the revolution. As Che points out, the New Man is no longer concerned about “how many kilograms of meat one has to eat, nor of how many times a year someone can go to the beach, nor how many pretty things from abroad you might be able to buy with present-day wages” (211). The New Man is freed internally and externally from these burdens because with socialism he feels “more complete, with much more internal richness and much more responsibility” (211). The metaphors of master and slave that characterize Che’s depiction of capitalism and education and liberation that characterize socialism and its New Man are literalized in his essay. Che seeks the concrete, the black and white world that these images connote.

3. Consequences of Literalized Metaphors
In promoting his ideas, and in practicing propaganda, Che creates analogies that he perceives as holding inherent values. Even the most pedestrian metaphors are used to educate the reader – to establish the conceptual frame for the Uruguayan readers – and to convince them that socialism and the New Man are the way of life. The first metaphor that he literalizes is the metaphor of the oppressor and the oppressed, the slave and the master. His strategy to persuade his readers and to awaken the conceptual imagination is borne from embracing the non-neutrality of language. Guevara nurtures in his metaphors a concreteness of meaning that stems directly from experience. Since socialism by default is the obvious route to take, it is very likely that his contemporary readers of Marcha were easily convinced of his arguments and sided with his vision of capitalism as a dehumanizing system with little to offer the masses. Guevara succeeds in diminishing the distance between language and reality, making a powerful and unmediated call for change to his readers. The power of hindsight allows us to admire his strong idealism and desire for revolution.
Yet, there is a key problem with his argument. For the 21st century reader it is a strain to accept these literalized metaphors that act as master narratives which polarize reality so neatly between desired/undesired, good/bad, socialism/capitalism. Although we can see in Cuba today a community that is strong and where the interest of the people is primary, they have still needed some material incentives since the individual’s selfishness has not necessarily been obliterated by socialism. However, there are many examples in which solidarity and altruism have played key roles in the dissemination of socialist belief. For example, Cuba’s continuous aid in moments of emergency to other nations (Nicaragua after the earthquake, Honduras after the hurricane), or their eagerness to help out with medical aid or education either by providing technological support or know-how to poorer countries reflects altruism. Thus, in some ways Cuba has become a vanguard in Latin America although the individuals in its society have had to continuously grapple with this issue. Che warns us several times that the process toward socialism is a lengthy and slow one, but perhaps he did not realize how slow or lengthy it could really be. Furthermore, he did not take into consideration other kinds of diplomatic, economic, cultural, or historic problems that would influence and hinder the development of the New Man.

For Guevara the New Man is a reality and he invests him with a series of values: he will be a leader of the vanguard, he will be guided by true revolutionary love, he will be responsible and more complete, and will inspire by his example. Yet the New Man can not come to fruition until socialism has taken place and socialism can not come to fruition without the New Man. As a true Marxist-Leninist, Che believes the Party will mediate between socialism and the New Man. Although he recognizes that the Party can have its faults, as for example, when in March 1962 due to sectarian policy there was a “decline in collective enthusiasm” (199). Also, the Party must keep a fine-tuned balance of not converting the mass into a flock of sheep because it follows its leaders blindly. What would happen if the leader of the party would not follow the people’s aspirations?  Because of his experience, Che believes that Fidel is a strong and good leader who mediates between the mass and the individual, seeking “a dialectical unity” (200). He defines a good leader very much as the Cuban people define him today; that is, the leader is followed not as a result of a temporary event or because there is a cult of personality, which inspires ideas that  “live only so long as the individual who inspires them” (200), but because he has fused himself with the people. Che says, “Fidel and the mass […] vibrate together” (200). The New Man depends on all of these factors coalescing to nurture him. As with socialism, the effect of literalizing the New Man metaphor leaves the reader with few options and engages us in change: either we embrace socialism and the New Man or we are doomed to a system that is corrupted, sick, and can only ensure our slavery.

4. Conclusion
Che writes from experience and because he played such an important role in the Cuban Revolution his words were received with respect, love and admiration. When he writes about his faith in the New Man and he supports his statements about the Party, the vanguard, and socialism with his testimonial of the Cuban revolution, his Montevidean readership was very likely to unquestioningly read and accept his letter. We could say that the power of testimony supports his discourse and that the epistolary structure of his statements shapes his message in a reader-friendly simple manner, reaching out to a public and actively persuading them into action with his beliefs. But to the contemporary reader the literalized metaphor is a major hurdle. We read in a critical manner because of our historical and cultural context and hindsight. We question the existence of the and of the possibility of creating a system in which revolutionary love would be the sole impulse driving human actions, especially since we know that the Cuban Revolution has been faced with the problem of incentives and because the New Man is still a project in the making. Although as rhetoricians the literalization of metaphors bothers us, for Che it was a very natural step in his proselytizing discourse to employ such metaphors. He probably saw the constructions of literalized metaphors as weapons that by creating a polarized world and turning reality into two camps, us and them, would engage people in change. Che’s zeal stems from his own context, one in which there is no middle ground since the revolution was at stake together with the revolutionary movements in the developing countries in Africa and Latin America.
It is interesting after reading Che’s essays that their impetus is timeless. He still awakens in us the desire for a better world in which humankind will be able to display and pursue its full potential. It is outdated, however, when we analyze his rhetorical strategies. He pursues narratives that are clearly defined; he dislikes gray areas and prefers the clarity marked by a final goal, a revolutionary society. Although he acknowledges the difficulty of reaching the goal, of the dialectical movement marked by success and defeat, he also openly embraces the fact that “in a revolution one wins or dies” (1994, 71).

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Introduction
One of the most controversial issues about arguments involving deontic and ethical matters is whether statements of duty or right can be inferred from statements of fact, and conversely. Most analytical philosophers have inclined to give a negative answer, alleging that duties or rights are not implied by mere facts (or the other way round), and hence that no combination of facts can imply a duty or a right, and no combination of duties or rights implies a fact.(*)
Not everybody has agreed, of course. Searle (1969) famously tried to derive duty assertions from factual assertions involving promises, but his interesting attempt has tended to be regarded as a failure owing to an equivocation on the meaning of promise. Geach also defended the connection between facts and duties in certain sense.
Most philosophers in the analytical tradition have regarded deontic utterances either as not conveying any real assertion (noncognitivism) or at most as conveying a very special sort of assertion, whose content would really have nothing to do with the content of factual assertions (separatism). Noncognitivism claims that deontic assertions are not real assertions. They lack cognitive content, and are only expressions of emotions, exhortations, or complex utterances which at least in part convey a non-cognitive message which does not depend at all on what is true or exists. According to separatism factual utterances stand for states of affairs which either exist (in this world) or not, whereas deontic utterances, if true at all, would express a peculiar kind of entity – a duty or a permission – whose existence (or whose obtaining) would be independent of the existence (or obtaining) of facts or states of affairs.

A third point of view is that from Castañeda (1975: 43 and 201 ff.) who views deontic assertions as standing for some special sort of entities, namely practitions, which are related to, but different from, corresponding propositions. Thus, there will be a clear-cut semantic dichotomy in normative statements. On the one hand, there are indicative clauses that express circumstances or factual conditions (propositions). On the other hand, there are specifically deontic actions considered as a deontic foci (practitions). So, the deontic statement that  ‘John has to give money to Lilian’ stands for a practition, namely that John should give money to Lilian, adding a duty operator; that practition is not the same as the state of affairs (or proposition) of  ‘John’s giving money to Lilian’, even though there is a special relationship between the proposition and the practition.
As against all those opinions, we hold that there is a valid logical inferential rule which from duties or permissions to facts, and conversely:
1. We reject noncognitivism. But developing our line of argumentation against noncognitivism goes beyond the scope of this work.
2. We reject the view that duties or permissions are independent of facts. As we shall comment later on, many duties and permissions are contingent on facts, i.e. arise only because certain facts exist. Otherwise there would be no such duty or permission (whether moral or legal).
3. We do not need practitions. What is more, the difference between practitions and propositions is obscure and mysterious; moreover such a difference is hard to reconcile with the existence of mixed sentences, such as  ‘You must not go out, but, if you do, take your umbrella’. ‘You go out’ and  ‘you do’ seem to stand for the same entity (in virtue of an anaphoric rule on the use of the prosentential verb ‘do’), but the dichotomous view of Castañeda forbids such an identification.
Thus, we reject the three alternative grounds for the refutation of inference of facts from duties and conversely.

Deontic notions and possible-world semantics
From a model-theoretic view-point, the rejection of derivability of facts from duties – and conversely – has been explained by means of possible-world semantics for deontic logics: something, A, would be obligatory if each ideal world contains A; something, B, would be permissible or licit if at least an ideal world contains B. But no inferential link would exist between the content of ideal worlds and the content of the real (or actual) world or of any bunch of designated worlds.
One of the conclusions which follow from such a view is that a duty exists whether or not the facts and conditions are so and so. What is obligatory and what is licit would not change with any change in the facts of the world.
However, this ‘idealised’ approach to deontic notions has lead to a huge array of severe paradoxes(i): contrary-to-duty paradox, Good Samaritan paradox, gentle murder paradox, second best plan, Ross paradox, etc. The core question involved in such a paradoxes is the ‘ensuant obligations’; i.e. duties that arise as a result of an antecedent factual situation – often one wherein another duty has been breached. Many duties are cases of the lesser evil. Thus, for instance, resorting to war is forbidden in accordance with current international law, but, in case such a prohibition is transgressed, new obligations arise as regards how to conduct the war (in accordance with international humane conventions, such as the Red Cross agreements).
The reason is that, as Jackson & Pargetter (1986) have shown, many factual situations give rise to ensuing obligations which would not arise at all unless those factual situations existed in the first place.
This has lead us to define the ‘paradox of lesser evil’ as the pivot around which all deontic paradoxes hinge: A general principle of morals and law lays down that, if we act wrongly, at least, we have to act so as to implement the lesser evil. However, to the extent that lesser evil is realised, evil is indeed done; but then – by means of the inference rule of logical closure(ii)  evil  – without conditions – must be done.
Thus, the rule of logical closure has to be waived in deontic logic and the usual possible-world semantics has to be seriously reworked, with the result that deontic logic must not been regarded as a particular kind of modal logic (except in a quite stretched sense, dropping almost all the usual laws of standard modal logics(iii)). (Nonetheless, as we shall see below, our approach is closer to modal logic in another respect.)

The persistence of the parallelism or isomorphy between modal logic and deontic logic is not arbitrary, though. When speaking about duties people used to be supposed to refer to what is normatively (morally or legally) necessary. Thus, obligatoriness is construed as a kind of necessity.
Nevertheless, obligatoriness has nothing to do with realization in ideal or optimal worlds. Many obligations and rights exist only because the world is in fact thus or so. Many obligations and rights arise only when certain factual circumstances are met; they exist in virtue of the world being as it is and not otherwise. So, duties are not the same in all worlds or situations. This is the main reason why all ideal-world approaches to logic of norms are doomed.
A consequence of this non-modal approach to deontic logic is the rejection – along with rule of closure – of several classical deontic principles, which involve the idealized view of normative contexts. Such is the case with deontic simplification: O(p(q) (Op. If ‘O(p(q)’ is true then all ideal worlds would contain p(q and hence would also contain p and q.

But that does not prove that the duty of p follows from joint obligation of p and q. It is possible that a part of the conjunction  – for instance p – should not be realized upon which the initially obligatory situation p and q would become prohibited (or anyway non-obligatory), since there would be no longer any reason for q to be discharged(iv). Thus, if, in virtue of a contract, a certain firm is bound to deliver a new computer and take away an old one, the firm is not bound to take away the old one as an isolated fact; for, suppose they fail to deliver the new computer, but, at the same time, they intend to take away your old one, alleging the contract compels them to perform that task. Of course, the duty to perform the latter action taken on its own was meant to be dependent on the former action being performed too.

Deontic detachment
A workable logic of norms cannot be developed without an adequate rule of deontic detachment. A deontic detachment schema is necessary to show how conditional obligation-sentences play the important role in normative argumentation they seem to play (Åqvist, 1967; Danielsson, 1968). Van Eck called that problem ‘the commitment and detachment dilemma’:
1. Detachment should be possible. How can we take seriously a conditional obligation if it cannot, by way of detachment, lead to an unconditional obligation.
2. Detachment should not be possible. If we allow detachment, the sets like the above (contrary-to-duty paradox) are inconsistent, but they represent perfectly possible and deontically interesting situations (ensuant obligations). (Van Eck, 1982, 263).
But what is the proper formal representation of conditional obligation? What is then the adequate formalization of deontic detachment? Standard deontic logics have represented conditional obligations in two ways.
On the one hand, some scholars (Alchourrón & Bulygin, 1971; Jones & Pörn, 1985) have proposed the hybrid formulation, which means they have viewed the conditional duty as an implication with a factual antecedent and a deontic consequent. Even though such a hybrid formulation  – with a narrow scope of the deontic operator –  allows directly deontic detachment, via modus ponens, it is unsatisfactory on several counts. For one thing, when uttering that statement, the law-giver would not be uttering a command but a sentence whose consequent is prefixed with a deontic qualification. For another, since ‘If p, then q’ is equivalent to the disjunction of q and strong negation of p, a way to fulfil the norm is by completely refraining from p (the condition)  – which is not accounted for by the narrow-scope rendering of conditional obligations. So, when the law demands that whoever has harmed another person has to give her a compensation, it is in effect commanding us to refrain from harming other people or else make up for the inflicted harm; consequently there are two different ways to fulfil the rule, namely: by refraining from causing harm or by giving adequate compensation.

On the other hand, a conditional obligation can be represented by means of a deontic operator with a wide scope: It is mandatory that, if p, then q. In this case, the conditional duty is a norm as a whole, in toto (Von Wright, 1994-95). The problem here is that in this case standard deontic logic does not give currency to deontic detachment when the condition or factual premise is fulfilled. Take the duty to compensate the victim one has harmed; suppose Sheila has harmed Ann. In standard deontic logics, it is impossible to conclude that Sheila must indemnify Ann.

A new approach to deontic argumentation
Our line of thought leads us to a new approach to deontic arguments which makes it logically correct to draw deontic conclusions from factual premises, and conversely. We maintain that there is an inferential link between facts and duties, and between facts and permissions. Hence we claim that there are quite cogent arguments from factual premises to deontic conclusions and conversely. (The possibility of conversion is a mere application of modus tollens).
In order to do that we need a new deontic logic, keeping clear of any possible-world semantics approach, a logic including a principle of conditional obligation: to the extent that, it being the case that p, it is obligatory that q-if-p, to that extent at least it is obligatory that q. Or, to give a rule formulation: from ‘it is mandatory that, if p, then q’ and ‘p’ to conclude ‘q’.
Any such a rule is incompatible with standard (i.e. conventional) systems of deontic logic. The principle of conditional obligation is a corollary of the ‘principle of binding option’,  which seems to us a fundamental axiom of deontic logic (Ausín & Peña, 2000a,b). It means that, when a situation p completely fails to occur, the obligatoriness of a disjunction between p and q implies the obligatoriness of q. That is to say, when someone is under a disjunctive obligation and, for whatever reason, they are either utterly unable or unwilling to perform one of the disjuncts, they are, to that extent, bound determinedly to fulfil the other disjunct.
Nonetheless, there is an asymmetry between arguing to facts from duties and the other way round. In the first case, the inference is direct, as a mere application of deontic detachment. For example, if David has the conditional duty of paying some taxes if he imports dangerous goods and David has not the obligation of pay those taxes, then (as a matter of fact) David has not imported dangerous goods.
As to how to infer duties from facts, the case is more complicated. In the above example, from the fact that David has imported dangerous goods plus the conditional obligation of paying some taxes if he imports such commodities, we, by deontic detachment, infer the duty for David to pay those taxes. In that case, the inference resorts to two premises, namely: a factual premise and a normative (conditional) one.

Now, even though they contain different prohibitions, all moral and legal systems coincide in laying down a principle of responsibility (or accountability) to the effect that transgressors are liable to pay damages or be punished (somehow or other). Such a principle can be construed in different ways (as a regula iuris, a juristic or interpretive maxim, or as a mandatory common-law precept of the  form: ‘It is obligatory that, if someone breaks the law, he should pay’). The particular sort of penance may vary, and in certain cases may be symbolic or practically ineffectual, but a normative system lacking the principle of responsibility would hardly count as one or have any claim on ruling the behaviour of intelligent beings.
A good (enough) system of deontic logic must validate all rational deductive arguments which can be carried out in all deontic or normative orders. Hence, a good system of deontic logic must contain (whether as a primitive rule or as a derived one) a rule of responsibility or a ‘principle of atonement’: forbidden actions must entail some sort of atonement or expiation.
Besides, all normative systems lay down a further principle, namely the harmfulness canon: harmful actions are forbidden; or, equivalently, all lawful actions are harmless: neminem laedit qui suo iure utitur. Harmful actions are such actions as cause harm and, besides, are committed willingly or negligently. Of course, some juridical orders maintain that you cause harm merely by belonging to a certain race, or by having homosexual relations or whatever. Whom do you harm according to those orders is quite another issue: perhaps society, or good people, or yourself. But even those orders (and of course more reasonable legal systems, too) agree on postulating that all actions are either allowed or else harmful.
So, the harmfulness canon (or assumption) is taken to be an analytical presupposition. Its particular status is open to debate again; perhaps it is an interpretive or jurisprudential constraint; but the simplest way of viewing it is as a general common-law precept, viz. that it is unlawful for any harmful action to be realized: O(Hp((p)’ (‘(‘ being strong negation[v], and ‘H’ being a harmfulness operator, to the effect that a harm is caused by the propositional content it operates upon).

Therefore, from ‘p’ and ‘Hp’, we infer, by deontic detachment, ‘O(p’; whence, in virtue of the principle of responsibility, we infer an obligation to compensate. Which means that the harmfulness canon plus the principle of responsibility jointly validate the inference rule of atonement: from p to infer q if p is of the form  X has harmed someone (willingly or negligently) and q is of the form  X must atone, X being replaced by the same term in both sentences.
Thus, on the ground of those two implicit and basic deontic rules – which can be looked upon as analytical presuppositions, or as universally and necessarily binding precepts, or as principles of deontic logic – a mere fact (namely the fact for somebody to have willingly or negligently caused any harm) entails the duty of atonement; thus we progress from facts to duties.
Our approach can be challenged on several points, especially by rejecting either the harmfulness canon or the principle of responsibility, or anyway their status as principles of deontic logic.
We think they are correct; but, even if we are wrong on that account, our main point remains: factual conclusions can be drawn from deontic premises (and conversely) with the help of only two universally accepted premises (which are either necessarily true, or analytical, or at least espoused by almost all persons engaged in moral or legal argumentation). But then, even if we could not infer purely deontic conclusions from purely factual premises alone, we still could infer purely factual conclusions from deontic premises alone, as we have seen.

Final remark
As for the difference between modal and deontic logic, modalists think factual conclusions follow from modal premises (Lp├p) and conversely (p├ Mp), but they reject any such inference for deontic operators (any inference of the forms μp├q or q├μp, where ‘μ’ is a deontic operator). Nonetheless, we, non-modalists, accept such an inferences from facts to duties and conversely; oddly enough, our approach is, on that point, closer to the modal logic paradigm than standard deontic logic.

NOTES
* This work has been supported by a post-doctoral grant of the Basque Government (first author) and the research project BUJ2001-1042 of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology.
[i] There is a great bibliography about deontic paradoxes. A brief account of deontic paradoxes and their intended solutions can be viewed in Ausín (2000).
[ii] The rule of logical closure means that the logical consequences of obligatory states of affairs are obligatory themselves. That rule has been considered a key element of standard deontic logics because it expresses a basic normative principle: that moral agents are committed to the logical consequences of their moral principles (Schotch & Jennings, 1981, 151).
[iii] There have been several rejections of the rule of logical closure in deontic realms: Hansson (1988), Weinberger (1991) and Ausín & Peña (1993).
[iv] In a similar way, licitness simplification is also rejected. Other classical deontic logic principles rejected are iteration and deontic addition.
[v] We refrain here from explaining the difference between simple negation, ‘~’, and strong negation,'(‘. Classical logicians may take them to be mere stylistic variants. 

REFERENCES
Ausín, F.J. (2000). Entre la lógica y el derecho: Paradojas y conflictos normativos. Donostia: Universidad del País Vasco. (PhD Thesis).
Ausín, F.J. & Peña, L. (2000a). Paraconsistent Deontic Logic with Enforceable Rights. In D. Batens et al. (Eds.), Frontiers of Paraconsistent Logic (pp. 29-47). Hertfordshire: Research Studies Press.
Ausín, F.J. & Peña, L. (2000b). Por qué la lógica deóntica debe divorciarse de la lógica modal. En M. de Mora et al. (Eds.), Actas del III Congreso de la Sociedad de Lógica, Metodología y Filosofía de la Ciencia en España (pp. 3-10). Donostia: UPV/EHU.
Alchourrón, C.E. & Bulygin, E. (1971). Normative Systems. Wien: Springer.
Aqvist, L. (1967). Good Samaritans, contrary-to-duty imperatives, and epistemic obligations. Noûs 1, 361-379.
Castañeda, H.-N. (1975). Thinking and Doing. Dordrecht: Reidel.
Danielsson, S. (1968). Preference and Obligation. Studies in the Logic of Ethics. Uppsala: Filosofiska föreningen.
Hansson, S.O. (1988). Deontic Logic without Misleading Alethic Analogies. Logique et Analyse, 123-124, 337-370.
Jackson, F. & Pargetter, R. (1986). Oughts, Options, and Actualism. Philosophical Review 95, 233-255.
Jones, A.J.I. & Pörn, I. (1985). Ideality, Sub-Ideality and Deontic Logic. Synthese 65, 275-290.
Searle, J. (1969). Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Schotch, P.K. & Jennings, R.E. (1981). Non-Kripkean Deontic Logic. In R. Hilpinen (Ed.), New Studies in Deontic Logic (149-162). Dordrecht: Reidel.
Van Eck, J.A. (1982). A System of Temporally Relative Modal and Deontic Predicate Logic and Its Philosophical Applications 1. Logique et Analyse 99, 249-290.
Von Wright, G.H. (1994-95). On Conditional Obligations. Särtryck ur Juridisk Tidskrift 1, 1-7.
Weinberger, O. (1991). The Logic of Norms Founded on Descriptive Language. Ratio Juris 3, 284-307.

It is my guess that what most of us identify with the Pragma-Dialectical theory is the set of  rules for Critical Discussions, or as they were originally styled, the “code of conduct for rational discussants.” (1984: 151)  I think these rules individually, and as a set, have a great deal of intuitive plausibility in their favour. Therefore, in this essay, I propose to look at the rules and ask where they come from, what it is that justifies them, and how they hang together?

By way of historical background, we should recall that the first rules for argumentation were not developed in Amsterdam. Some have found rules of argumentation in Aristotle’s Topics; the Medievals had stylized, rule-governed games of disputation (Rescher 1977: 1-2); Whately, in the nineteenth century, explicitly relies on rules of argumentation in his discussion of  ad hominem arguments (Hansen 1995: 405-06).  More recent but less well-known authors have also proposed rules of argumentation. One interesting set of rules is found in James Johnson’s Logic and Rhetoric.  Johnson defined ‘argumentation’ as the kind of rhetoric “which tries to convince us of a certain point of view or attitude.” (Johnson 1962: 143) Since the activities of convincing and the discovery of facts are independent endeavours we are surprised to see that a few pages later the function Johnson ascribes to argumentation is “to discover the truth, that is, to establish facts.” (Johnson 1962: 147). Johnson apparently belonged to that benign age in which it was thought that once the facts were made plain, conviction was inevitable.

James Johnson’s ten “elementary ground rules,” lightly edited, are these:
J1. Be sure that your statements are accurate representations of what you really think. [Unless your words assert clearly the opinions you hold, you cannot convince anyone of your point of view nor can you test and confirm that view for your own benefit.  Say what you believe.]
J2. Define the areas of agreement and disagreement between yourself and those whose views you oppose. Do not waste time arguing over things you are really agreed upon.
J3. Never, never argue about established facts. Look them up in one or more authorities.
J4. Be sure you know whether the argument is founded upon differences of opinion concerning causation, obligation, evaluation, or generalization. [The evidence you present to support your view must be determined by the nature of the disagreement.]
J5. Summon up from memory, collect from reliable sources, and compare from common experiences between yourself and your opponent all relevant data or evidence, not just evidence to support your point of view. [You are supposed to be finding out facts, not humiliating an enemy.]
J6. Keep yourself emotionally detached and stay cool. [Lost tempers do not win arguments. The tone of your voice or your written composition must stay moderate and composed. Remember the Biblical injunction, “A soft answer turneth away wrath.”]
J7. Examine all evidence thoughtfully and objectively. [Use what you know about the principles of logical order to arrange and evaluate all information pertinent to the issue.]
J8. Stick to the issue or question under discussion. [… Failure to do so can result in a fallacy such as ignoring the question, ad hominem or begging the question.]
J9. Do not appeal to the emotions of your opponent or your readers when you find yourself being tested intellectually. [… It is a fallacy to appeal to pity, or fear, or patriotism, or “just plain folks.”]
J10. Reach whatever conclusions seem justified by the evidence calmly considered. If you think the evidence insufficient, then postpone your decision until more evidence is available.
J11. If you decide your original decision was wrong, admit it and accept the right one. [No one loses face by admitting his mistakes.] (Johnson 148-49)

I think Johnson’s rules are best seen as advice-giving rules. He is advising us when he says we should “be sure …” of this (J1 and J4), “never, never” do that (J3), “keep cool” (J6), and be thoughtful and objective (J7). Unlike the Pragma-Dialectical rules, there is nary a “must” or “obligated” to be found anywhere in these rules.

That is one of the striking features of the Pragma-Dialectical rules. In the version we will look at, the verbal auxiliaries are “must,” “obligated,” “may … only,” and “may not.”  This is the language of what is permitted and forbidden, not the language of advice. The Pragma-Dialectical rules sound much more categorical than hypothetical; moreover, they  speak of “advancing” (P1 and P2), “attacking,” (P3) and “defending” (P2, P4, P7, P9) standpoints. These are militaristic metaphors familiar to both legal and philosophical argumentation. Interestingly,  Johnson does not use these adverbs; in contrast, he advises us to “examine all evidence thoughtfully and objectively” (J7) and “reach whatever conclusion seems justified by the evidence calmly considered” (J10).
Although Johnson’s eleven rules predate the Pragma-Dialectical ones by about twenty years, they do have some similarities with them.  But all the points of comparison – positive and negative – concerning the substance of the two sets of rules must be examined at another time. In this essay I want to restrict my inquiry to the question of  how a set of argumentation rules may be justified.
In their original presentation (in English) of the rules for a Critical Discussion, van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1984: ch. 7) offer their rules as a code for the use of speech acts by rational discussants. Back then, in 1984, they formulated seventeen rules, some of them with several clauses. Since then, they have removed the explicit reference to the kinds of speech acts that the rules govern, but the rules, now reformulated as a decalogue, are no less elegant and  comprehensive than they were before. Here is how the Pragma-Dialectical rules were presented in the 1996 book, Fundamentals of Argumentation Theory (283-84, italics added).

P1. Parties must not prevent each other from advancing standpoints or from casting doubt on standpoints
P2. A party who advances a standpoint is obliged to defend it if asked by the other party to do so
P3. A party’s attack on a standpoint must relate to the standpoint that has indeed been advanced by the other party
P4. A party may defend a standpoint only by advancing argumentation relating to that standpoint
P5. A party may not disown a premise that has been left implicit by that party or falsely present something as a premise that has been left unexpressed by the other party
P6. A party may not falsely present a premise as an accepted starting point nor deny a premise representing an accepted starting point
P7. A party may not regard a standpoint as conclusively defended if the defence does not take mplace by means of an appropriate argumentation scheme that is correctly applied
P8. A party may only use arguments in its argumentation that are logically valid or capable of being validated by making explicit one or more unexpressed premises
P9. A failed defence of a standpoint must result in the party who puts forward the standpoint retracting it and a conclusive defence of the standpoint must result in the other party retracting its doubt about the standpoint
P10. A party must not use formulations that are insufficiently clear or confusingly ambiguous and a party must interpret the other party’s formulations as carefully and accurately as possible

Let us compare the way in which the two sets of rules are ‘justified’.
Johnson’s justification of his eleven rules is neither deep nor rooted in theory. He says we must observe the rules if we are to accomplish the purpose of argumentation (Johnson 1962: 148) which is “to discover the truth, … to establish facts” (Johnson 1962: 147). He tells us –  without proof –  that it is necessary to follow a set of rules if we are to discover truth. He then accompanies some of his eleven rules with a brief justification of the rule (I have inserted square brackets in the quoted rules to indicate what I think the justification is). The first rule, which calls for accuracy of expression, is justified by the proposition that you cannot convince someone of your viewpoint if you cannot express it clearly, nor can you test it for your own benefit. The fourth rule says that we should be aware of the kind of disagreement we are involved in (causation, obligation, etc. …) because the kind of disagreement determines what will count as relevant evidence. Two of the rules, J7 and J8, are justified by the claim that if we fail to follow them we would be committing fallacies.  J10 tells us to withhold our judgment if there is insufficient evidence. This lemma is supported by the wisdom that it is better to be indecisive than to make an irrevocable wrong decision. The final rule, J11, admonishes us to admit we were wrong if we were wrong. The justification here does not seem to be an epistemic one at all, for it is that no one loses face by admitting his or her mistakes. Moreover, it is not true. One does lose face in admitting mistakes (that’s why we don’t like to do it).

So, we see that, very briefly, Johnson attempted to give a justification or rationale for each of his eleven rules. The rules are necessary, said Johnson, if argumentation “is to accomplish its purpose” (Johnson 1962: 148) and from this we infer that Johnson viewed the rules as being instrumental rules serving the end of argumentation – that being to bring about conviction by establishing facts. He was quite clear, however, that following the rules would not make one “a model of prudent rationality;” (Johnson 1962: 149) since the possibility of mistakes still remains. That is to say, the eleven rules were not claimed to be sufficient for conviction-based-on-facts, for the reason that the rules were not thought to be complete.

The justification of the ten Pragma-Dialectical rules, although it shares some points of similarity with Johnson’s approach, is much more systematic, detailed and theoretically motivated. Nevertheless, the justification of any set of dialectical rules has a magical air about it not unlike the experience of seeing a rabbit being pulled out of a hat. How do those magical dialecticians do that!?
In their essay, “Rationale for a pragma-dialectical perspective” (1988/1994), van Eemeren and Grootendorst address the question of how the rules of Pragma-Dialectics are justified. This rationale is given informally and
a. it seeks to avoid the shortcomings of earlier argumentation theorists (Toulmin and Perelman);
b. it is innovative in that it finds new applications for respected theories and ways of combining insights from different schools (Barth and Krabbe’s formal dialectics + Austin and Searle’s speech act theory); and
c. it is theoretically explicit and self-conscious since it seeks to identify its own meta-theorectical starting points (externalization, socialization, dialectification and functionalization). There is no reason to think that all the cards are not on the table. However, having found reasons to esteem the Pragma-Dialectical rationale for the ten rules for a Critical Discussion, one may still find it difficult to find the right starting point from which to begin to tell the story of their genesis.

It is easiest to begin with the Munchhausen trilemma which says that theories of justification force us “to choose between the following unacceptable options:
1. an infinite regress,
2. a logical circle, or
3. breaking off [of] the justification process at an arbitrary point.” (Van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1994: 19)

Van Eemeren and Grootendorst seem quite convinced both that these are the only three traditional alternatives for theories of justification and that each of the alternatives is unsatisfactory[i]. This leads them to cast around for a new model which would make it reasonable – but not justified – to hold a point of view. Accordingly, they develop the concept of an ideal critical discussion, which they imbue with the Popperian notion that points of view are credible to the degree that they can withstand criticism, and with the innovation that the defence of and criticism of a point of view should be done within a dialectical framework. In the dialectical framework there will be two voices, or parties, who are charged with settling a difference of opinion. If these two parties go at it, honestly and openly, they may decide that a point of view can withstand criticism, or that it cannot. In the former case, perhaps, we have a kind of answer to the third horn of the Munchhausen trilemma: there is a weak but non-arbitrary ‘justification’ for a particular opinion because it has withstood examination in a critical discussion. This makes it non-arbitrary, and so reasonable to hold the view, to a degree.
The Critical Discussion, as van Eemeren and Grootendorst envision it, should allow unrestricted range of expression and defence of any point of view as well as criticisms of it. Unrestricted in subject matter, that is; not in procedure. Regulation is required to ensure that the settling of a differences of opinion is not unreasonable. To this end, the rules are required. But, we ask, why this particular set of rules?
Van Eemeren and Grootendorst address the question of rationale, or justification, of the rules directly. They think that there are at least two independent tests that a set of dialectical rules must pass.
A dialectical argumentation theory should provide rules for the conduct of an argumentative discussion, and these rules should together constitute a problem-valid and convention-valid discussion procedure, thus guaranteeing the degree of consideredness [i.e., reasonableness] required for a critical discussion to be carried out (Van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1994: 21).[ii]
Problem-solving validity concerns the suitability of the rules to do the job they are intended to do, and the Pragma-Dialecticians think that their rules’s effectiveness in prohibiting all of the classical fallacies is “the best test [of] the problem-validity of the dialectical system of rules” (ibid.). Fallacies are seen as anathematic to critical discussions, and that the rules block them is evidence of their problem-validity. Van Eemeren and Grootendorst show that the rules are problem-valid by showing which fallacies are blocked by each one of them  (Johnson also did this for some of his rules).

Turning now to convention-validity, or as it is also called ‘inter-subjective,’ validity. Van Eemeren and Grootendorst argue here that the rules should be acceptable in principle “to those whose first and foremost aim is to settle a dispute” because the rules were developed for that very purpose (ibid. 25). But ultimately, the justification of the rules will be pragmatic: the rules will be acceptable if they are successful in their intended role of settling disputes. The question of conventional-validity is then an ongoing question, putting the rules to the test every time they are used to solve a difference of opinion. Together problem-validity and conventional validity constitute the two tests of the dialectical validity of the rules of Pragma-Dialectics.

When asked to defend the rules for a Critical Discussion, an off-duty Pragma-Dialectician might well say, “Well, we have this idea that a difference of opinion ought to be settled by discussion, and as far as we can tell, discussions ought to follow these rules. If anyone wants further elucidation or justification for the rules, he will just have to mediate further on the nature of ‘critical discussions.’” In this way, then, the concept of a ‘critical discussion’ gives rise to the rules, but the rules are constitutive of a Critical Discussion. I think this is really a large part of the explanation: the idea of a critical discussion gives rise to the need for regulation (that is, for rules) and as individual rules are identified and added to the list, the concept of a critical discussion comes into sharper relief. The Pragma-Dialectical rules I quoted above, define ‘Critical Discussion’ at its present state of philosophical evolution.

As an inquiry, I want to raise the question of the internal connection between the ten rules. That is, my question is whether there is any internal relations between the ten Pragma-Dialectical rules other than that they are claimed to be constitutive of the concept of Critical Discussion. I begin by noticing that the rules R1-R10 are stated in terms of what is obligatory and what is forbidden: the main verbal auxiliaries in the ten rules are ‘must not,’ ‘may only,’  and ‘may not.’ But it is also possible to state the rules in terms of the rights of the discussants. There is some precedence for doing this. For example, in discussing the formulation of the rules in their early work van Eemeren and Grootendorst speak of “the right to challenge” a standpoint (1984: 158) and later, speaking of the first rule, they say that “both the advancing and doubting of a viewpoint are therefore formulated without reservation as a basic right” (1994: 23).

R1. A and B each have a RIGHT to advance standpoints & A and B each have a RIGHT to cast doubt on standpoints
R2. If A advances a standpoint then B has a RIGHT that A should defend that standpoint
R3. If A attacks B’s standpoint then B has a RIGHT that A’s attack should be relevant to the standpoint that B has actually advanced
R4. If A defends a standpoint then B has a RIGHT that A’s defence of A’s standpoint should consist only in argumentation that is relevant to A’s standpoint
R5. B has a RIGHT that A not disown a premise that has been left implicit by A & B has RIGHT that A not present something as a premise that has been left unexpressed by A
R6. B has a RIGHT that A not falsely present a premise as an accepted starting point & B has a RIGHT that A not deny a premise representing an accepted starting point
R7. B has a RIGHT that A not regard a standpoint as conclusively defended unless A’s defence of A’s standpoint took place by means of a correctly applied appropriate argumentation scheme
R8. B has a RIGHT that A, in A’s argumentation, use only arguments that are logically valid or capable of being validated by making explicit one or more unexpressed premises
R9. If A fails in A’s  defence of A’s standpoint, then B has a RIGHT that A retract that standpoint & if A’s defence of A’s standpoint is conclusive then A has a RIGHT that B retract B’s doubts about A’s standpoint
R10. A has a RIGHT that B not use formulations that are insufficiently clear & A has a RIGHT that B no use formulations that are confusingly ambiguous & A has a RIGHT that B interpret A’s formulations as carefully and accurately as possible

Each of these rules, R1-R10, is interchangeable with its counterpart in the set P1-P10.

What kinds of rights these are deserves full discussion at another time. For now I will only observe that they are neither moral nor legal rights, and propose that they are to be thought of as conventional and artificial rather than natural, and that they are rights of parties qua their participation in Critical Discussions. More generally we may think of them as rights of those who engage in the practice of argumentation.

Once we have the rules stated in terms of rights we can apply some principles about rights and obligations to them. In particular, we will suppose that two principles in the sphere of legal and moral rights are transferable to the sphere of rights in argumentation. Consider the following passage from Feinberg’s Social Philosophy.

It is often said that there can be no rights without duties, and that a prior condition for the acquisition or possession of rights is the ability and willingness to shoulder duties and responsibilities. The theory that acceptance of duties is the price any person must pay in order to have rights has been called the doctrine of the moral correlation of rights and duties.  This is in contradistinction to the doctrine of the logical correlation of rights and duties …  which asserts that attribution of rights to one person logically entails the existence of at least one other person who has duties towards him. (Feinberg 1973: 61)

The logical correlation of rights duties is the best known. It simply says that if A has a right to have or do X, then there is some B who has a duty to let A have or do X. I shall assume that the opposite relation holds as well: if A has an obligation to have or do X, then someone else has a right that A should have or do X. Unlike the logical correlation of rights and duties, the moral correlation of rights and duties is not analytic. It presupposes a background of goals, restrictions and trade-offs: if A has a right then, as Feinberg suggests, there will be a price to pay for having that right, namely that A will also has a duty. Whereas the logical correlation of rights and duties is interpersonal, the moral correlation is intra-personal. Some examples for illustration are these: if citizen X has a right to vote, then X also has a duty not to prevent any other citizen, Y, from voting; and if citizen X has a right to attend the church of his choice, then X also has a duty not to prevent any other citizen, Y, from attending the church of his choice. Interestingly, we shall see that the converse of this principle is relevant to our investigation too: if A has obligations, then A has rights too. In sum, we have four different principles that correlate rights and duties:

LC(R-D)  – If A has a right then B has a duty
LC(D-R)  – If A has a duty, then B has a right
MC(R-D) – If A has a right, then A has a duty [iii]
MC(D-R) – If A has a duty, then A has a right [iv]
With this as a background let us have a look at how the Pragma-Dialectical rules may be related to each other.

The first rule of P-D is about the right to advance and criticize standpoints: No restrictions whatsoever are to be placed on this rule. This rule is so important that we should give it a name like Mill’s Rule, reminding us of the elegant defence he gives of this very principle in chapter two of On Liberty. But R1 really grants two rights to participants in Critical Discussions: the right to advance standpoints and the right to cast doubt upon standpoints.  With the right to advance standpoints granted in R1 comes a duty, in P2, to defend standpoints if asked to do so. This is a moral correlation of a duty with a right, MC(R-D). Van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1994: 23) agree, for they write: “A person who advances a viewpoint has automatically acknowledged an obligation to defend or prove the viewpoint, if required.” So the first rule gives rise to the second rule.

We might pause to notice that if the protagonist is obligated to defend his standpoint, as P2 proclaims, then by MC(D-R) he has a right to defend his standpoint. This right is not explicitly acknowledged in the ten rules for a Critical Discussion.

Does the second right granted in R1 – the right to cast doubt on standpoints – give rise to a duty? It seems plausible that it does, viz., the duty in P3, that a criticism of a standpoint must be relevant to it. This correlation is also an instance of MC(R-D).

Now, if the antagonist in a Critical Discussion is obligated to make only relevant criticisms of the other party’s standpoint, as P3 asserts, then it would be fair that he should have a right that the defence of the standpoint by the protagonist should be relevant as well. This gives us R4 (which is  equivalent to P4) –  the protagonist is obligated to make a relevant defence of his standpoint and the antagonist has a right that he should do so. We have then reached P2-P4 from R1: they may be seen as correlated with R1.

Rule P9 says that a party who fails to defend his standpoint must withdraw it, and a party’s decisive defence of a standpoint obligates his opponent to withdraw his doubt. If parties have the obligations to admit defeat in this way, then this presupposes that certain standards of argumentation are in effect such that one’s obligation to concede is based on the quality of the argumentation. Thus we may hold that the obligations given in P9 can be correlated with certain rights pertaining to the standards of argumentation: if I am obligated to withdraw my doubt due to argumentation then I have a right that the argumentation should be good argumentation. That is, I can claim as a right that the argumentation must meet the standards of validity (rule R8) and the standard of communication (rule R10). Here I have twice appealed to MC(D-R): the duty to abide by the outcome of argumentation brings with it rights of  the participants about the quality of the argumentation.

The Pragma-Dialecticians put great stock in argumentation schemes, and they hold that an argumentation is not acceptable unless it is accomplished via an acceptable scheme. I will not discuss this claim here, other than to observe that –  if that is how it seems to them – one would also generate the right to have argumentation meet the standard of argumentation schemes (rule R7) from the obligation to concede only in light of good argumentation (rule P9).

Rule 5 has to do with implicit premises, saying that a party to the argumentation can be held to any premises he leaves unstated. This seems like a fair rule. After all, if I must bow to the better argument, then I have a right that all parts of the argument should be open for examination, even its unstated premises. So, once again, from the obligation given in rule P9, by MC(D-R) we find the right stated in R5.

I think rule 6 to be the most intriguing of the Pragma-Dialectical rules. More so than the other rules, it straddles the logic-dialectic divide. The rule says, in my words, that the ultimate premises from which the argument for the standpoint is given must be agreeable to the antagonist. In other words, the antagonist has not only the right that the argumentation to which he is asked to bow should be valid, fully explicit, and done by an appropriate scheme, he also has the right that it begin from premises which he finds acceptable. This is perhaps, as it should be. After all, one cannot prove anything to anyone if they will not accept the ultimate premises of the argument. Again, here we have MC(D-R), this time giving us R6 from P9.

What I think I have done here is that I have suggested another way in which the rules for Critical Discussions could be justified. I assume that the two sets of statements of the rules, the P-rules and the R-rules, are equivalent such that any Pn rule is equivalent to its Rn counterpart. My method is to start with a  rule from one of the sets, R1, and show that by correlation of right and duties, it gives rise to certain obligations of argumentation which can be stated as rules P2-P4. Then turning my attention to rule P9, I showed that the obligations it pronounces can be correlated with rights which are really rules R5-R8 and R10. Thus, my modest claim is that from two of the ten rules, the other eight can be generated. Of course, this leaves out any defence of rules R1 (= P1) and P9; they must be justified in some other way. However, on the positive side, my approach seems to show that there is some internal connection between the Pragma-Dialectical rules, that they are conceptually connected in a way not emphasized by the Pragma-Dialecticians themselves.

NOTES
[i] A view not shared by all philosophers.  Discussion of this trilemma is attributed to a work by Hans Albert in  1975, and made available in English in Albert 1985.
[ii] The concepts ‘problem-valid’ and ‘convention-valid’ are owed to Barth and Krabbe (1982: 21-2).
[iii] That the correlation is ‘moral’ does not imply that the rights or duties here discussed are moral.
[iv] In law and ethics there are well-known exceptions to the middle two principles.  We have a duty to be charitable but there is no particular charity which has a right that we should benefit it; and young children, (and possibly animals) have rights but not duties.  I do not think that the counterparts of these objections will figure in the present discussion.

REFERENCES
Albert, Hans (1985) Treatise on Critical Reason, M. V. Rorty, trans.  Princeton.
Barth, Else M., and Erik C. W. Krabbe (1982) From Axiom to Dialogue.  Berlin and New York.
Eemeren, Frans H. van, and Rob Grootendorst (1984) Speech Acts in Argumentative Discussions.  Dordrecht.
Eemeren, Frans H. van (1994a) “Rationale for a pragma-dialectical perspecive,” in van Eemeren and Grootendorst, Eds. (1994b) 11-28.  Reprinted from Argumenation 1988.
Eemeren, Frans H. van , Eds. (1994b) Studies in Pragma-Dialectics. Amsterdam.
Eemeren, Frans H. van , (1992)  Argumentation, Communication, and Fallacies.  Mahwah.
Eemeren, Frans H. van , and Snoeck Henkemans, et al. (1996) Fundamentals of Argumentation Theory.  Mahwah.
Feinberg, Joel (1973) Social Philosophy.  Englewood Cliffs.
Hansen, Hans V. (1996) “Whately on the ad hominem: a liberal exegesis,” Philosophy and Rhetoric 29: 400-415.
Johnson, James W. (1962) Logic and Rhetoric.  New York.
Rescher, Nicholas (1977) Dialectics: A Controversy Oriented Approach to Epistemology.  Albanyences.

This paper proposes a descriptive approach of the question of norms in argumentation; it is based on a case study: the accusation of amalgame in everyday arguments.
We consider after Hymes (1984) that speakers possess a communicative competence, which may be defined as a set of aptitudes owing to which one can communicate efficiently in various situations. This communicative competence comprises, besides the linguistic competence, an argumentative competence which enables speakers to take a stand and to elaborate their position through discursive devices in order to hold out against contention. The argumentative competence thus enables speakers to elaborate argumentative discourses; it also enables them to interpret argumentative discourses they are exposed to. Such an interpretative process implies at least two cognitive processes: a categorizing process, and an evaluative process.

In order to interpret an argument, speakers first “label” it owing to spontaneous argumentative categories provided by the language they use (Plantin 1995). Such categories may rely on general lexical items such as “argument”, “to argue”…, or they may refer to specific argumentative moves (such as “to concede”, “to refute”, “to justify”, “to object”…). They may even designate a precise type of argument: “example”, “analogy”, “appeal to authority”… Once the argument has been identified, it is characterized as acceptable or unacceptable by means of evaluation criteria which are often left implicit. The existence of the normative dimension of ordinary argumentative competence is attested through meta-comments which are frequent in polemical contexts. Such claims may be quite general (for instance: “that’s not a valid argument”); they may also be related to a specific argumentative device: “don’t appeal to authority”, “you should discuss facts rather than persons”, “stop making hasty generalizations”…
The whole interpretative process has in turn some effects on the production of arguments. Actually, once a speaker has received an argumentative utterance and has deemed it fallacious, he may reject in on behalf of this fallaciousness judgement through a refutative move.The identification of the criteria which guide ordinary speakers in evaluating an argument as “sound” or fallacious is of great interest for the argumentation analyst. Such an identification may be achieved through the thorough examination of two ranges of phenomena:
– Refutative moves: the way a speaker refutes a specific argument is significant of the conditions under which, in his view, this argument can be accepted. Consider for instance a speaker A who tries to support p by saying that X, a well known authority on the question under discussion, agrees that p. A’s claim can be challenged by a speaker B who contests X’s status as an authority. Thus for B, the acceptability of an appeal to authority depends on the evaluation of X as an expert: if no consensus exists among his peers as whether or not he may constitute a reliable authority on p matters, then the appeal to authority should be rejected as fallacious (Doury 1999).
– Meta-argumentative comments: a sharp attention should be paid to meta-argumentative comments in polemical contexts, in order to identify the spontaneous argumentative categories ordinary speakers use to classify and interpret the various argumentative moves they are addressed. Such categories may be neutral (like the “analogy” category mentioned before), or they may be evaluative: it is the case for the French word “amalgame”, which will be studied here. Contrary to an analogy, which can be “good” or “bad”, an “amalgame” is always fallacious. The lexical characterization of the word “amalgame” excludes the possibility of an utterance such as “what a good amalgame you’ve made!”.

The present paper is devoted to the description of the accusation of amalgame in French argumentative discussions. The data consist in sequences in which a speaker identifies the opponent’s argument as an amalgame in various argumentative discourses: everyday conversations, newspapers, TV debates… We will first show that the word “amalgame” is a French meta-argumentative expression the purpose of which is to disqualify an antagonistic argumentation as fallacious. We will then identify the argumentative devices which can be caracterized as “amalgames”, in order to elaborate a definition of the meaning of this word. The detailed analysis of examples will put to the fore the fact that the word “amalgame” as it is used in everyday argument refers to various argumentative devices, such as causal correlations, analogy relationships, inductive reasonings… It may even be confined to a refutative function, without any consistent meaning.
We will conclude with underlining the interest of a descriptive approach of the normative component of ordinary speakers’ argumentative competence.

1. The French word “amalgame”
The French word “amalgame” originally refers to a blend of various components such as a metal alloy or a culinary preparation. Thus, its initial meaning is concrete. In the figurative sense, “amalgame” refers to the association of two concepts, and is close to ‘synthesis’.
Its pejorative argumentative meaning seems to be very recent; it is not even mentioned in the Trésor de la Langue Française (a French reference dictionary). Nevertheless its frequency in ordinary conversations makes it a central instrument of the normative activity related to the argumentative competence.

The examination of data from newspapers shows that the word “amalgame” appears not only in the body of articles but also in titles and subtitles. Examples 1 to 5 are titles taken from French newspapers in which the word “amalgame” appears.
1.
“Amalgame”: titre de l’éditorial de Jacques Amalric, Libération, 17-18 novembre 2001.
“Amalgame”: title of an editorial by Jacques Amalric, Libération, November 17-18, 2001.
2.
“L’érudition ne met pas JFK à l’abri de l’amalgame”: titre d’un article, Marianne, 15-21 novembre 1999, p.5.
“Erudition does not protect JFK from ‘amalgame’”: title taken from Libération, March 13, 2001. (JFK = Jean-François Kahn, a French journalist)
3.
“Non à l’amalgame. Le mot “pédophile” est un concept qui mélange tout et permet de justifier une législation disproportionnée à la gravité de certains actes”, titre d’un article de Libération, 13 mars 2001.
“Stop using ‘amalgame’. The word ‘pedophile’ is a concept which mixes everything and is used as a justification for a legislation which is out of proportion with the seriousness of some crimes”, title taken from Libération, March 13, 2001.
4.
“Amalgames” = intertitre de l’article “Les Turcs de Barr sous le choc”, Libération, 4 janvier 2002.
“Amalgames” = subtitle from the article entitled “Turkish people from Barr in shock”, Libération, January 4, 2002.
5.
“Loi sécuritaire, loi liberticide. La loi ‘sécurité quotidienne’ (LSQ) fait l’amalgame entre délinquance et terrorisme tout en servant les intérêts politiques du Premier ministre.” Libération, 8 novembre 2001, rubrique “Rebonds”.
“Security act, a threat for freedom. ‘Daily Security’ Act (DSA) makes an amalgame between criminality and terrorism while serving the Prime Minister’s political interests.” Libération, November 8, 2001.
Besides, the word “amalgame” is itself the subject of meta-linguistic comments, as illustrated in example 6.
6.
“ ‘Amalgame’ est sans doute le mot le plus employé à Vitry depuis le début de l’année. Dans le discours des membres de l’ACCMV [Association culturelle et cultuelle des musulmans de Vitry], il revient à chaque phrase, tour à tour mise en garde ou prière.” (Marianne, 7-13 janvier 2002, p.23)
“No doubt ‘amalgame’ has become the most often used word in Vitry since the beginning of the year. It appears in every sentence, whether warning or plea, in the speeches of the members of ACCMV (Cultural and Religious Association of Muslims from Vitry)” (Marianne, January 7-13, 2002, p.23)
Such strategic positions testify to its function as an argumentation organizer.

2. Qualifying an argumentation of “amalgame” is a way of rejecting it as unacceptable
Apart from very rare utterances, the word “amalgame” in argumentative contexts works as a disqualifying device. It must be pointed out that:
– the person accused of making an amalgame is always the opponent;
– in a confrontational context, such an accusation is always challenged.

An amalgame is something you deny having made, as in example 7; an amalgame is a pitfall one must avoid, according to ex. 8 and 9; an amalgame is something you cannot make (cf. example 10); an amalgame is something which is feared (example 11), from which you have to protect yourself (example 2).
The negative evaluation associated with the word “amalgame” is also made obvious by the choice of adjectives which are applied to it. “Amalgame” is deemed “fallacious” and “unfair” in example 12, “dangerous” in example 13. “Amalgame” is associated with “mistake” in ex. 12.
7.
(Informations, Europe 1, 2002): “Le président de la République s’est défendu de tout amalgame entre insécurité et drame de Nanterre. Le droit et l’honneur du Président de la République, c’est d’essayer de comprendre”
(News, Europe 1 radio, 2002): “The President of the Republic denied having made an amalgame between insecurity and the Nanterre drama. It is the President’s right and honor to strive to understand such an event.”
8.
“Il faut, par ailleurs, se garder des amalgames.” (Le Nouvel Observateur, 7-13 mars 2002, p.104, “L’autre cauchemar des victimes”)
“Besides, it is imperative to avoid amalgames.” (Le Nouvel Observateur, March 7-13, 2002, p.104, “Victims’ other nightmare”)
9.
“Conscient des tensions latentes, qu’il estime néanmoins ‘mesurées’, le maire Gilbert Scholly a tenté de calmer le jeu: ‘Il faut éviter les amalgames.’” = intertitre de l’article “Les Turcs de Barr sous le choc”, Libération, 4 janvier 2002.
“Aware of latent tensions (which he nevertheless deems ‘moderate’), said Mayor Gilbert Scholly to calm people down: ‘One must avoid making amalgames.’” (subtitle from the article “Turkish people from Barr in shock”, Libération, January 4, 2002)
10.
“On peut pas faire l’amalgame et c’est pas parce qu’il y a eu quatre cinq mauvaises personnes qui ont envahi un stade que ça y est, quoi” (Franck Leboeuf, 1er mars 2002, France 2, réaction à l’invasion de la pelouse par des supporters algériens lors du 1er match amical OM / sélection algérienne à Alger)
“You can’t make amalgame and say ‘we are there’ just because four or five bad people invaded the stadium” (Franck Leboeuf, March 1, 2002, France 2, reacting to the invasion of the pitch by a few supporters of the Algeria team during a match between the Olympique de Marseille and an Algerian selection in Algiers)
11.
“L’amalgame, c’est la plus grande crainte de Sami, Azzedine et Abdrachid.” (Marianne, 7-13 janvier 2002, p.23)
“Amalgame is Sami, Azzedine and Abdrachid’s major fear” (Marianne, January 7-13, 2002, p.23)
12.
(Au courrier du “Monde”, 02/12/2001, “Des surréalistes chez Ben Laden?”): Jean Clair m’a surpris par son parti pris anti-surréaliste (Le Monde du 22 novembre) et surtout par les nombreux amalgames et erreurs qu’il contient. S’il n’est pas douteux que les surréalistes aient voulu “démoraliser l’Occident”, il me paraît fallacieux de les présenter comme des précurseurs des terroristes du 11 septembre. (…) L’amalgame qui est fait avec Filippo Tommaso Marinetti n’est pas juste non plus.”
(Le Monde, Letters to the Editor, 02/12/2001, “Surrealists at Ben Laden’s?”): Jean Clair’s anti-surrealist option surprised me (Le Monde, November 22), above all because of the many amalgames and mistakes it contains. Although there is no doubt surrealists intended to “demoralize Western countries”, presenting them as precursors of the eleventh-of-September terrorists seems fallacious to me. (…) The amalgame which is being made with Filippo Tommaso Marinetti is unfair too.”
13.
“D’abord parce que ce texte relève justement de cette pratique de l’amalgame, toujours dangereuse, en particulier en période électorale” (Editorial de Jacques Amalric, Libération, 17-18 novembre 2001, article “Amalgame”).
“First because this text is a relevant illustration of this amalgame practice which is always dangerous, especially during election time” (Editorial by Jacques Amalric, Libération, November 17-18, 2001, article: “Amalgame”).

3. Other expressions used for accusing someone of making an amalgame
Besides the use of the very word of “amalgame”, other expressions designating the same device are often met. In example 14, “amalgame” refers to the “confusion” of facts which should be kept distinct. In example 15, the word “confusion” is associated with “amalgame”; French also uses the verb “assimiler” as an alternative for “making an amalgame”; in this sense, “assimiler” means “to consider as equivalent”, or “to treat in the same way”. In Example 16 an amalgame is “a rag-bag of a concept” which “mixes” and “confuses” different things. The accusation of amalgame, when taking the form of an injonction (“you shouldn’t make amalgames”), is closely linked with expressions such as “you shouldn’t lump different things all together”, as in example 17.
14.
[Sur le fait que des pratiques d’abus sexuel par du personnel humanitaire ont été révélées à l’encontre de réfugiés dans des camps d’Afrique de l’Ouest:] “Il faut, par ailleurs, se garder des amalgames. (…). Il semble, selon certaines données de ce rapport, qu’aient été confondus des actes relevant de la pure criminalité sexuelle et des faits de prostitution qui, bien qu’indéfendables, ne sont pas du tout la même chose.”(Le Nouvel Observateur, 7-13 mars 2002, p.104, “L’autre cauchemar des victimes”)
[about the disclosure of sexual abuse by humanitarian staff on refugees in West Africa camps] “Besides, one must avoid making amalgames. (…) It appears that, according to some elements of this report, there has been a confusion between crimes coming under pure sexual criminality and prostitution events which, although indefensible, are not at all the same thing.” (Le Nouvel Observateur, March 7-13, 2002, p.104, “Victims’ other nightmare”)
15.
“L’érudition ne met pas JFK à l’abri de l’amalgame (…) L’article de JFK sur Jeanne d’Arc témoigne d’une grande culture historique, certainement supérieure à celle du modeste licencié en histoire que je suis. Mais il me semble cependant qu’il n’échappe pas à une certaine confusion due à l’utilisation abusive des termes ‘gauche’ et ‘droite’, ‘réformistes’ et ‘conservateurs’, pour désigner les protagonistes de cet épisode de notre histoire. JFK semble assimiler à la droite tous les partisans du renforcement de l’autorité royale, et à la gauche tous les adversaires de la monarchie absolue favorables à un contrôle parlementaire.” (Marianne, 15-21 novembre 1999, p.5)
“Erudition does not protect JFK from amalgame. (…) JFK’s paper on Jeanne d’Arc displays a great historical culture, no doubt superior to my own as a modest Bachelor of History. Nevertheless it seems to me that he still falls into a certain confusion due to the misuse of such words as ‘left’ and ‘right’, ‘reformists’ and ‘conservatives’, to designate the protagonists of this episode of our history. JFK seems to consider [assimiler] all the defenders of the reinforcement of royal authority as belonging to the ‘right’, and all the opponents to absolute monarchy, favourable to a parliamentary control, as belonging to the ‘left’”. (Marianne, November 15-21, 1999, p.5) 
16.
“premièrement, on a créé un ‘concept’ fourre-tout, amalgame de notions hétéroclites où l’on mélange des bébés de deux ans et des adolescents largement pubères, des liaisons consenties avec des violentes, où l’on confond des caresses avec des assassinats, où les moindres gestes avoisinent des crimes sordides (qui souvent ne concernent pas des enfants) et sont eux-mêmes criminalisés. Vocable qui frappe d’infâmie, au même titre, actes, regards et pensées.” (“Non à l’amalgame”, rubrique “Rebonds”, Libération, 13 mars 2001)
“first a rag-bag of a ‘concept’ was created, an amalgame of heterogeneous notions in which two-years old babies are mixed with amply pubescent teenagers, willing partner affairs with violent ones, an amalgame in which caresses are mistaken for murders, in which the slightest gestures border on sordid crimes (which often do not even deal with children) and themselves are criminalized. This word covers acts, looks and thoughts with infamy in the same way.” (“Stop amalgame”, Libération, March 13, 2001).
17.
“La communauté a beau se répéter qu’il s’agit d’ “actes individuels délirants”, expliquer qu’ “il ne faut pas mettre tous les Turcs dans le même sac”, elle sait bien qu’il va lui falloir faire front.” (Libération, “Les Turcs de Barr sous le choc”, 4 janvier 2002).
“However often the Turkish community repeats that it is a matter of insane individual acts or explains that “one should not lump all Turkish people together”, they are fully aware of the fact that they will have to face things in the end.” (Libération, “Turkish people from Barr in shock”, January 4, 2002).
Such expressions (as “confusing”, “mixing”, “assimiler”) may appear in association with the word “amalgame”, like in the former examples. But in many cases the analyst is bound to identify the accusation of amalgame even if the very word is not uttered. Example 18 illustrates such a case.
18.
“On connaît la pensée, ou plutôt la tactique, d’Ariel Sharon. Voilà près de trois mois, en effet, qu’il martèle l’équation “Arafat = Ben Laden” pour mieux repousser aux calendes grecques toute approche politique de l’affrontement israélo-palestinien. Que Yasser Arafat lui ait donné des arguments en adoptant une position plus qu’ambiguë par rapport au terrorisme et en s’arc-boutant sur le droit au retour – en tout état de cause inacceptable pour Israël – de la diaspora palestinienne est un fait. Mais cela n’autorise en aucun cas d’évacuer la question nationale palestinienne en l’assimilant au délire sanglant, messianique et suicidaire à la fois, des fous d’Allah de l’internationale islamiste. Les Palestiniens, que l’on sache, ne rêvent pas d’étendre la charia à toute la planète mais ils sont en manque d’un Etat.” (Editorial de Jacques Amalric, “Jeu de clone”, Libération, 5 décembre 2001)
“Ariel Sharon’s ideas – let’s say his tactics – are well known. He’s been hammering out the equation “Arafat = Bin Laden” for almost three months in order to postpone indefinitely any political approach to the israelo-palestinian conflict. Undoubtedly, Yasser Arafat provided him with arguments by taking a most ambiguous stand on terrorism and by clinging to the right of the Palestinian diaspora to come back – which in any case is unacceptable for Israel. But it does not justify, on any account, eluding the question of a Palestinian nation by associating it with the bloody delirium, at the same time messianic and suicidal, of the Allah disciples of the islamist International Group. Palestinian people, as far as we know, are not dreaming of extending the Charia to the whole planet but they are in quest of a state.” (Editorial by Jacques Amalric, Libération, December 5, 2001).

In brief, examples 14 to 18 show that the accusation of amalgame can take various forms, where the word “amalgame” is not always present. Nevertheless we will focus only on cases where the word “amalgame” is used. It may be assumed that the existence in French of a lexicalised preferential form meant to carry such an argumentative strategy actually increases the refuting potential of the accusation of amalgame.

4. What does the accusation of amalgame refer to?
The choice we have made not to propose any English translation for “amalgame” is due to the fact that the English equivalents which are available are much too restrictive. For instance, the Robert and Collins French-to-English electronic dictionary proposes an ‘exploded’ definition which develops into three directions:
amalgame [amalgam] nom masculin
(péj: mélange) (strange) mixture ou blend
(Métal, Dentisterie) amalgam
un amalgame d’idées à: LET OP A MET STREEPJE MOET PIJL ZIJN, VET GEMAAKT!! hotchpotch ou (strange) mixture of ideas
faire l’amalgame entre deux idées à to confuse two ideas
il ne faut pas faire l’amalgame (fig Pol)à you shouldn’t make generalizations

Each of the proposals corresponds to a specification of the meaning of “amalgame”, and therefore cannot serve as a unified definition.
The examination of our examples brings out two main categories of argumentative devices which may be considered as ‘amalgames’ in a polemical context:
4.1. associating two objects x and y on the basis of properties which are presented as shared and conclusive
The accusation of amalgame may be triggered by:
– a parallel or a comparison between two objects x and y:

Example 19 is taken from a TV debate on astrology. The astrologer, ET, is confronted with DB, astronomer, who denies the very principle of astral influence, and concludes that astrology has no value.
19.
ET: Vous savez qui vous me rappelez?
DB: Peu m’importe, peu m’importe.
ET: Lord Kelvin qui au début du XXème siècle disait “l’aviation n’existe pas, on ne pourra jamais voler parce que le métal est plus lourd que l’air; voilà ce que vous me rappelez.
DB: Nous sommes au XXème siècle, non non non non, rien à voir, c’est un amalgame. C’est un amalgame, vous faites des amalgames extrêmement savants et ces amalgames, je veux les dénoncer parce que ça c’est scandaleux.
ET: Mais si! et Galilée, alors? et Galilée? alors…
ET: you know who you remind me of?
DB: I don’t care, I don’t care
ET: Lord Kelvin who, in the beginning of the 20th Century kept saying: “aviation does not exist, planes will never fly because metal is heavier than air”; that’s what you remind me of.
DB:We are in the 20th century, no no no no, nothing to do with that; that’s an amalgame, you’re making extremely learned amalgames, and these amalgames I want to denounce them because doing that is scandalous.
ET: Yes, yes! What about Galileo? What about Galileo?

Here the astrologer arguments from the precedent. She draws a parallel between Lord Kelvin’s position on aviation in the beginning of the century, and DB’s position on astrology today. This parallel rests on some caracteristics which are shared by both situations and which are left implicit. The astrologer attempts to transfer the judgment about the past situation to the present situation, namely: Lord Kelvin was not clear-sighted, Lord Kelvin was wrong – and so is DB. This parallel is rejected by the astronomer as a “scandalous amalgame”. DB supports the accusation of amalgame by making explicit a difference, presented as crucial, between the two situations: “we are in the 20th century”. The astrologer persists in her strategy and proposes another likening key figure: Galileo. The second parallel is between the astronomer and the Holy Office on the one hand, and between heliocentrism and astrology on the other hand.

The accusation of amalgame may also concern
– a generalizing claim rejected as a hasty generalization:
This case is illustrated by example 20, taken from a TV debate on parapsychology. The skeptical guest PB claims that parapsychologists fool their clients in order to get money out of them.
20.
PB: écoutez, ils ramassent des millions quand même avec ça
GD: [acteur, montrant un invité qui affirme avoir des dons de prémonition]: non monsieur, pas ce jeune homme, pas même la personne dont je parle; voilà, ok.
PB: d’autres! d’autres, d’autres! d’autres ramassent des millions avec ça
GD: vous faites un amalgame; mais non, mais vous faites un amalgame
PB: mais non, il n’y a aucun amalgame qui est fait; il y a des gens qui souffrent tous les jours de ça, il y a des gens qui ramassent des millions, nous on leur demande des preuves.
(“Ciel mon mardi”, “les pouvoirs de l’esprit”, 10/10/2000)
PB: listen, they collect millions with that
GD: [a French actor, pointing to a guest who claims to possess premonition gifts]: no sir, not this young man, not even the person I am speaking about; okay, that’s it.
PB: others! others, others! Others collect millions with that.
GD: You’re making an amalgame; no non, you’re making an amalgame.
PB: No, there’s no amalgame being made. Everyday people suffer from that, people collect millions and WE want them to give us proofs.
(“Ciel mon mardi” programme, “spirit powers”, 10/10/2000)

Here the generalizing claim “they collect millions with that” is challenged by two counter-examples (“no sir, not this young man, not even the person I am speaking about”). The skeptical guest does not refute the counter-examples; nevertheless he persists in accusing all parapsychologists but the two persons mentionned. This persistance triggers the accusation of amalgame, which he in turn rejects (“no, there’s no amalgame being made”). At last, PB reiterates his initial position (“people collect millions”) and associates it with an ad misericordiam (“everyday people suffer from that”).

The accusation of amalgame may also be due to a disagreement on
– a class extension definition
The accusation of amalgame is addressed to a speaker who is blamed for having excessively broadened a class extension: either one claims the object under discussion does not possess the properties which are characteristic of the class, or he contests these very properties.
Thus, after a mass murderer shot at representatives during a town council meeting in Nanterre, killing several people, Jacques Chirac declared: “Insecurity ranges from ordinary incivility to the drama we experienced tonight”. He was criticized for this declaration, which was perceived as an excessive use of a tragical event. Denial was prompt (ex. 21).
21.
(Informations, Europe 1, mars 2002): “Le président de la République s’est défendu de tout amalgame entre insécurité et drame de Nanterre. Le droit et l’honneur du Président de la République, c’est d’essayer de comprendre”.
(News, Europe 1 radio, 2002): “The President of the Republic denied having made an amalgame between insecurity and the Nanterre drama. It is the President’s right and honor to strive to understand such an event.”

Here, the point is how to define the class refered to as “insecurity events”. Such a class is not stabilized and may be defined in various ways (it may even include offences to highway code, which contribute to making car driving “insecure”). The reactions to Jacques Chirac’s declaration emphasize the fact that there is no agreement on the extension of this class. Furthermore, in this case, such a disagreement was not a “cold”, purely intellectual one: the definition of insecurity proposed by Chirac was seen as part of a wider political strategy aiming at using the public emotion generated by the “Nanterre drama” to gain support to Chirac’s national security proposals. Once again, the accusation of amalgame is directed towards a connection which is condemned not only as intellectually disputable, but also as ethically or strategically disputable.

A similar case occurs when an opponent disqualifies a whole class C because of a few nasty elements X it contains. This opponent may be accused of making an amalgame between “good” Xs and “bad” Xs, the C class being confined to “good Xs”. In other words, the “good” property is added to defining properties of C, so that “bad” Xs are no longer considered as “true Xs”. Example 22 illustrates this case. PB is a herbal medicine practitioner, and he defends herbal medicine from critics deriving from of a few unacceptable practices by considering that people guilty of such practices are not “true herbal medicine practitioners”.
22.
PB: Mais ça, ce sont des abus des obésologues pour lesquels nous payons actuellement, monsieur (…); or je voudrais pas que vous fassiez l’amalgame, nous n’avons rien à voir avec ces gens-là, nous nous sommes des phytothérapeutes, nous sommes des cliniciens depuis vingt ans (…)
PB:Sir, this is obesity specialist excesses for which we are now suffering (…); so I wouldn’t want you to make the amalgame, we have nothing to do with these people, we are herbal medicine practitioners, we have been health technicians for twenty years (…)

The second main category of devices identified as ‘amalgames’ is based on

4.2. The connection between two objects x and y because of a dependence relationship between them
Most of the time, the accusation of amalgame concerns a causal relationship which is held to be erroneous. In example 23, the word “amalgame” is applied to the claim that there is a causal relationship between musical piracy on the Internet and CD sales drop. The interviewee supports such an amalgame accusation by proposing other causes (“To my mind, several factors account for it, such as piracy, possibly the poor quality of artistic directors or the concentration of major recording companies who do not facilitate the arrival of new actors”).
23.
mercredi 5 décembre 2001, 16h45 (Dépêche AFP):
01net.: A combien évaluez-vous les pertes financières causées par le piratage de la musique?
Catherine Kerr-Vignale (Sacem): Nous ne pouvons chiffrer précisément les pertes de l’industrie du disque imputables au piratage. Cependant, l’Ifpi (l’industrie phonographique) donne des chiffres que l’on peut analyser comme une tendance. Surtout, il ne faut pas faire d’amalgame entre l’utilisation d’Internet et la baisse des ventes de CD dans le monde. Ce n’est pas parce qu’un internaute va télécharger illégalement de la musique qu’il n’achètera pas le CD du chanteur ensuite. En fait, on ne sait pas réellement à quoi cette baisse est due. A mon avis, c’est un ensemble de facteurs comme le piratage, peut-être la mauvaise qualité des directeurs artistiques ou la concentration des majors qui ne favorise pas l’arrivée de nouveaux acteurs.
December 5, 2001, 16.45 (AFP dispatch):
01net.: How much money do you think was lost by music pirating?
Catherine Kerr-Vignale (Sacem): We cannot estimate with any precisions the amount of money which was lost by the record industry that can be directly attributed to piracy. However IFPI (phonographic industry) provides figures that can be analyzed as a trend. However one must not make an amalgame between Internet and the decreasing sales of CD round the world. You can’t consider that simply because an internaut illegally downloads music, he will not buy the singer’s CD afterwards. In fact, one doesn’t really know what explains this drop. To my mind, several factors account for it, such as piracy, possibly the poor quality of artistic directors or the concentration of major recording companies who do not facilitate the arrival of new actors.

5. Difficulties in identifying what the accusation of amalgame is about
The examination of further examples reveals a difficulty often met by the analyst in identifying what the accusation of amalgame precisely concerns. In many cases, the accusation of amalgame is produced in reaction to circulating discourses, the general reasoning of which can be easily hypothesized, but the litteral formulation of which is inaccessible.
In such cases one cannot define what precisely triggers the accusation of amalgame. As an example, let us consider the recurring accusations of amalgame concerning the connection between “communism and nazism”, or between “the way Israel behaves with regard to the Palestinian people and the way the nazis behaved with regard to Jews”, or the connection between “Bin Laden and Yasser Arafat”. Sometimes one can establish a link with a precise declaration recently made by a politician; but most of the time, the accusation of amalgame refers to a fuzzy set of circulating speeches which may be attributed to a Nation, a political group, a lobby, but the letter of which has been lost.

6. The accusation of amalgame’s “semantic emptying”
Besides, even when the analyst has at his disposal the whole relevant discursive context, he may be unable to identify a speech event which would elicit the accusation of amalgame and which would correspond to one of the categories mentioned before. In such cases, the accusation of amalgame seems to mean nothing but “I do not accept your argument”, whatever the argument is.

Example 24 comes under such a case. It is taken from the same TV debate as example 19. According to ET, during a luncheon, the astrophysicist Hubert Reeves had admitted he did not exclude the astrology hypothesis. The astronomer DB challenges her claim.
24.
DB: Il n’a jamais dit ça
ET: Mais vous étiez là? vous étiez dans ce déjeuner?
DB: Mais lui il me l’a dit, il me l’a confirmé; voilà le genre d’amalgame que je dénonce. C’est scandaleux de dire des choses comme ça.
DB: He never said that.
ET: But were you there? Were you at that luncheon?
DB: But he himself told me, he confirmed it; that’s the sort of amalgame I condemn. Saying such things is absolutely scandalous.

Here, there is no doubt as to what the accusation of amalgame is about: it concerns the negotiation on Hubert Reeves’s position on astrology. On the other hand, the meaning of “amalgame” in such a case is pretty obscure – other than a moral evaluation along the lines of “what you are saying is scandalous”.

Conclusion
In conclusion, the examination of various instances of the accusation of amalgame shows that it can be seen as a polyvalent (wide spectrum) meta-argumentative refutation device, of which the widest definition would be as follows:
– A claims that B unduly connected x and y.
– He did so on the basis of a similarity, or of a causal relation, or of a generalization, which the accusation of amalgame rejects as unacceptable, erroneous or fallacious.
– The opponent’s argument is rejected on behalf of a norm which is left implicit, but which we suppose not to be proper to A – that is, to be widely admitted – hence the possibility of using elliptical accusations of amalgame, without any justification, as if everybody knew what is at stake.

The accusation of amalgame’s refutative function may even override its denotative meaning (which is yet quite fuzzy); the accusation of amalgame is then used almost independently from the argument which has been advanced by the opponent: its only purpose is to disqualify the opponent’s discourse as infringing on the widely admitted rules of an argumentative discussion.
Such a case study aimed at showing the interest of adopting a descriptive approach of the critical dimension of ordinary argumentative competence. Many questions arise, among which:
– What is the status of such meta-argumentative comments? how much do speakers stick to the argumentative norms they refer to? Are they mere strategic devices meant to achieve specific argumentative goals? Or do they reflect a consistent ethical perspective on argumentation?
– What is the connection between the argumentative and the linguistic component of the communicative competence? The assumption we make that the existence in French of the word “amalgame” is significant suggests that such a connection does exist, but it has to be further investigated.

Finally, the analyst must face the question of the use of ordinary categories like “amalgame” in the academic analysis of argumentation. Is it possible to use such a category without first understanding the way it really works in everyday arguments? And even though, is it possible to re-define it in a way that would be explicit and systematic enough to make it a reliable tool for argumentation analysis? The positive answer to this question must not be excluded a priori, but it certainly is not the choice we make as an argumentation analyst.

REFERENCES
Doury, M. (1999). El argumento de autoridad en situacion: el caso del debate mediatico sobre astrologia. Escritos 17/18, 89-112.
Hymes, D. (1984). Vers la compétence de communication. Paris: Hatier-Crédif (LAL).
Plantin, C. (1995). L’argument du paralogisme. Hermès 15, 245-262.

The main purpose of any newspaper article is to make the reader agree to share the journalist’s viewpoint. That is why newspaper discourse is necessarily argumentative. And it is mainly by means of language that the journalist tries to persuade his reader to accept his argumentation.
If we look at any newspaper article we’ll readily notice how often any journalist quotes other people. Naturally we can conclude that if reported speech is so frequently used it plays some important role in building argumentation. In the present work we try to figure out the functions of reported speech in argumentative newspaper discourse.
The research was based on the articles of quality British papers (the Times, the Guardian, the Financial Times, the Herald) and yielded the following results.
Analysis showed that in the structure of argumentation reported speech can be found in two possible positions: in the position of the thesis and that of an argument.
Only one third of the argumentations analyzed used reported speech as the thesis. This can be easily understood: if a journalist formulates the thesis himself he is free to put it any way he likes and further interpret it accordingly. And if his thesis is a quotation from some other person’s utterance, he is bound by what was actually said and not so free in interpretation. In spite of this, a number of argumentations still had its thesis in the form of reported speech. Then we must ask ourselves, what are the advantages of this use that compensate the abovementioned inconvenience.
As the thesis of argumentation reported speech performs the following functions: function of additional support of the thesis at the very stage of its proclamation, function of a shift of responsibility, aesthetic function and indication of the authorship of the article.

Function of additional support of the thesis at the very stage of its proclamation is the most important one. Here the thesis partially gains characteristics of an argument. As soon as the thesis is proclaimed it is immediately supported by the authority of a person who said it.

(1) In Liverpool last week, Tony Blair himself said: “We need to renew ourselves for times to come” (Guardian, Wednesday July 9, 2003, p. 22).

As soon as we see such a thesis, even before any support is given, we already tend to believe it or at least take it less critically, especially if the quoted person is an authority to us (as Tony Blair is, or at least was at the time the article was published, to the majority of British citizens, as the elections showed). It is interesting to note that the wording itself coincides with the name of an argument to authority: “ipse dixit” = “himself said”.
We called the next important function of reported speech as the thesis of argumentation “function of a shift of responsibility”. By this we mean that the author of the article uses reported speech to introduce an antithesis that will be refuted further on in his article.

(2) “History will forgive us,” bleats Blair. (Herald, Monday, July 21. 2003, p.13).

The same person as in (1) is quoted, but the attitude to his words is quite different. The selection of the word “bleats” clearly indicates the author’s intentions. Such a function of reported speech is characteristic of articles full of sharp criticism and denunciation.
However, the same function of a shift of responsibility can be met in its more moderate form in the articles where the author doesn’t show his position at all and stays neutral. Usually in such cases he investigates two contradictory viewpoints and takes responsibility for neither.

(3) Just as strongly as northern regions press their case for special treatment, the regions in the greater South-East argue vociferously for re-investment. (Financial Times, March 6/March 7, 2004, p. 9).

Here both viewpoints are introduced by reported speech, though no exact names are given. The two functions discussed above can be most often figured out in newspaper argumentation using reported speech as its thesis. There are however, two minor functions: aesthetic function and indication of the authorship of the article.

Sometimes an attractive utterance of some person helps to capture the reader’s attention, makes him read the article, influences him:

(4) Britain should protect its citizens “against injustice and wrong” (Guardian, Wednesday July 9, 2003, p. 22).

Quotation in this article clearly belongs to the bookish elevated style and in this respect stands apart from the argumentation that follows. Sometimes reported speech as the thesis of argumentation simply introduces the author of the article.

(5) The former teacher has taken a vital role in the president’s re-election campaign, writes James Harding (Financial Times, March 6/March 7, 2004, p. 11).

It looks as if the thesis is introduced by the newspaper editorial board, and the task to prove it is delegated to a certain journalist.

Thus as the thesis of argumentation reported speech can both add weight to the proposed claim and withdraw responsibility for the claim from the author of the article and is a convenient means of argumentative persuasion.
However, in most cases reported speech can be found in the position of an argument, where it is mostly used for the purposes of convincing and persuading (the borderline between the two can not be always clearly defined). Here we can observe an interesting feature of constructions with reported speech that makes them an effective means of persuasion. In most cases these constructions function as two-faced units, a unity of two types of arguments. The first is represented by an introducing proposition (author’s words) and is inevitably an argument to authority. The second argument is represented by the quoted words of the authority and can be an argument of any type. Lets take as an example a combination “Argument to authority+ Modus Ponens/ Modus Tollens”

If А than В – (6) To win, analysts say, a candidate has to convince Americans he has the stature to be president,
А – a measure on which Kerry excels.
Therefore, В – *Kerry will win the elections

If А, than В -(7) American voters have to believe a candidate thinks enough like them, says Anthony Corrado of the liberal Brookings institute, think-tank and a veteran of Democratic campaigns.
Not А – Kerry too often seems aloof, despite his campaign’s efforts to change him.
Therefore, not В – *Kerry will not win the elections
(Herald, Saturday March 6, 2004, p. 10)

Here the criteria of success with the American electorate are presented not by the journalist himself, but by competent persons presented as such to the reader: Anthony Corrado of the liberal Brookings institute, think-tank and a veteran of Democratic campaigns or just anonymous analysts. Modus Ponens/ Modus Tollens are well-justified schemes of argumentation readily accepted by any reasonable judge. But the fact that they are combined with an argument to authority makes convincing/ persuasion even more effective.

A question naturally arises what is the relative contribution of each of these two parts of an argument represented by reported speech to the overall effect. What is more important for the reader: appeal to authority or the argument contained in the quotation itself?
We conducted an experiment to determine the persuasive power of each component of these two-faced units.
For the experiment native-speakers were divided into two groups. Each group was given a text of the article Ban on Parents Using Science to Select Child’s Sex taken from The Times (Wednesday November 12, 2003. p. 6), devoted to the question how ethical it is to select the sex of your future baby by means of modern medical techniques. To support the claim that this is unacceptable the author puts forward eight arguments presented by reported speech. In the texts presented to the first group of native-speakers constructions with reported speech were left as they were in the newspaper, and in the text presented to the second group appeal to authority was withdrawn, the text contained only the quoted word themselves as if they belonged to the journalist himself.

It is already common knowledge that reaction to argumentation largely depends on the initial opinion of the recipient on the question discussed, his demands, experience, knowledge, background, philosophy, etc. He tends to accept more readily the arguments that coincide with his initial opinion and vice versa (Witte, Brownlee 1991, p. 1064; Kunst-Gnamus 1991, pp. 653-662). Taking this into consideration before presenting the arguments, we asked the participants of our experiment to express their initial opinion on the problem in question (in favour/ more in favour/indifferent/more against/against). At the stage of results analysis we introduced coefficients that were supposed to minimize the effect of the reader’s prejudice on his evaluation of arguments. If opinions of the reader and the journalist coincide, the latter tends to give higher evaluation to the arguments. That is why for these cases we used coefficients <1. In the reverse case arguments are not so readily accepted by the reader, and we used coefficients >1. The following coefficients were used:
in favour – 3
more in favour – 2
indifferent – 1
more against – ½
against – 1/3

The results of the experiment are shown in Table 1.

Table 1 – Average convincing force of arguments for the two groups of participants

Thus, our experiment showed that though the readers mainly become convinced by an argument contained in the quoted words, a reference to authority adds convincing power to these arguments (in average 1.25 times). But if the main argument doesn’t sound convincing to the reader, an appeal to authority can’t make it acceptable to him.

Another function of reported speech in the position of an argument is to permit the journalist to conceal his deliberate fallacies in argumentation from the reader. Impressed by the authority of the person whose words are quoted the reader takes the argumentation less critically.

Unfortunately, such cases are not rare in contemporary British press. For example, journalists proclaim one thesis and actually prove another – such a fallacy in logics got the name ignoratio elenchi:

(8) Commercial cultivation of genetically modified maize is to be approved

The initially proclaimed discussion of pros and cons of commercial cultivation of genetically modified maize turns into the argument about reliability of the results of farm-scale evaluations of the effects of GM crops. The reader becomes involved in the emotionally coloured exchange of arguments between reputable organizations (the environmental audit committee, The Department for Environment, The Royal Society, the national Academy of science). Using reported speech in the position of the argument the journalist prevents the reader from noticing the fact that the thesis has been changed.

Besides, the reported speech in the position of an argument can be used for the purpose of refutation: the words of the opponent are quoted to reveal weak points in his argumentation and to put forward counter-arguments.

(9) In his spirited rejoinder, Michael Palmer makes the absurd statement that “as a general rule, those who are clever, innovative and hard-working become more wealthy than those who are not”.

↑←

A massive amount of wealth is simply inherited, and so it has nothing at all to do with being “clever, innovative and hard-working”.

↑

Take figures for the US: the richest 1% inherit about one-third of the inherited wealth, the next 9% inherit another third, whereas the remaining 90% inherit wealth averaging $ 40,000. (Herald, Saturday, March 6, 2004, p.12)

In this argumentation the author first quotes the words of his antagonist when introducing the thesis (or, actually, antithesis) of his argumentation. Then in his argument, which is further supported by quoting exact figures, he uses again the section of the initial quotation that seems to him most unacceptable. He turns the antagonist’s proper words containing his evaluation of the rich against him.
Thus, it is not par hazard that reported speech can so often be found in argumentative newspaper discourse. On all stages of argumentation it comes in handy for a variety of purposes. In permits the journalist to shift the responsibility for a disputable thesis, attracts the reader, persuades and convinces him by the authority of the quoted source and by the force of the argument contained therein, hides the journalist’s fallacies and sometimes even “betrays” its author turning its power against him. In a word, the use of reported speech in newspaper argumentative discourse is completely justified by the variety of important argumentative functions it successfully fulfills.

REFERENCES
Witte, K. & D. Brownlee (1991). Morals And Medicine: Causal Warrants In The AIDS Debate. In: Proceedings Of The Second International Conference On Argumentation 2 (pp. 1062-1067). Dordrecht: Foris.
Kunst-Gnamus, O. (1991). An Attempt At Conceptualizing The Difference Between Pragmatic And Rational Argumentation. In: Proceedings of the second international conference on argumentation 1 (pp. 653-662). Dordrecht: Foris.

ISSA Proceedings 1998 

Frans H. van Eemeren et al – Preface
Aakhus, M. – Reconstruction games: Assessing the resources for managing collective argumentation in groupware technology
Aldrich, A.W. – Framing Blame and Managing Accountability to Pragma-Dialectical Principles in Congressional Testimony
Amossy, R. – The argument ad hominem in an interactional perspective
Azar, M. – Refuting counter-arguments in written essays
Baaske, K. – Arguing Over Values: The Affirmative Action Debate and Public Ethics
Baker, M. – The function of argumentation dialogue in cooperative problem-solving
Balter, S.J. – ‘The Search for Grounds in Legal Argumentation: A Rhetorical Analysis of Texas v Johnson’
Bedau, H.A. – What are the ‘Anarchical Fallacies’ Jeremy Bentham Discovered in the 1789 French: Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen?
Beer, F.A. & De Landtsheer, C. – Metaphorical politics: mobilization or tranquilization?
Berkenbosch, R. & Van der Geest, I. – Practical guidelines for justifying decisions about major projects
Birrer, F.A.J. – Asymmetry in the dialogue between expert and non-expert
Blair, J.A. – Walton’s argumentation schemes for presumptive reasoning: A critique and development
Brandon, E.P. – What’s Wrong with God?
Branham, R. – Abolitionist reconstructions of July Fourth
Brashers, D.E., Haas, S.M. & Neidig, J.L. – Satisfying the Argumentative Requirements for Self Advocacy
Cattani, A. – Bad Reasoning, Good Humor
Chan, W. – Wittgenstein and Cognitive Psychology
Cohen, D.H. – How To Lose an Argument
Coleman, E. – Acts of argumentation: beyond spoken dialog
Collins, C.A. & Schmid, J.D. – The Power and Perceived Truthfulness of Visual Arguments in U.S. Political Campaign Biofilms
Conley, T.M. – The Renaissance Roots of Perelman’s Rhetoric
Craig, R.T. & Sanusi, A.L. – “I’m Just Saying …”: Discourse Markers of Standpoint Continuity
Danblon, E. – Is Praise a kind of Advice?
Darsey, J. – Calculating Environmental Value: The Displacement Of Moral Argument
DeLoach, M.B. & Engstrom DeLoach, D. – Argumentation and children’s art: An Examination of Children’s Responses to Art at The Dallas Museum of Art
Deppermann, A. – Semantic shifts in argumentative processes: A step beyond the ‘fallacy of equivocation’
Dietrich, J. – Argument Theory and the Rhetorical Practices of the North American ‘Central America Movement’
Dolder, F. – Methods for evaluating legal argumentation
Dolinina, I.B. – Does the hedgehog climb trees?: The neurological basis for ‘theoretical’ and ‘empirical’ reasoning patterns
Domajnko, B. – Towards a proposition of the argumentative square
Douglass, D. – The Use of Metaphor in Scientific Argument: The Case of Edward Clarke’s Sex in Education
Doury, M. – Burden of proof : a negociable argumentative ‘chore’
Eemeren, F.H. van & Houtlosser, P. – Delivering the goods in critical discussion
Eemeren, F.H. van & Houtlosser, P. – William the Silent’s Argumentative Discourse
Eemeren, F.H. van, Grootendorst, R., Meuffels, B. & Verburg, M. – The (un)reasonableness of ad hominem fallacies
Farrell, K.M. – Ubuntu or Acknowledgment: An Analysis of the Argument Practices of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Farrell, Th.B. – Magnitude Beyond Measure: Judgment and Justice in the late Twentieth Century
Feteris, E. – What went wrong in the ball-point case? An analysis and evaluation of the discussion in the ball-point case from the perspective of a rational discussion
Finocchiaro, M.A. – A critique of the dialectical approach: part II
Fiordo, R. – Truth and Justice In Mass Media Reporting and Commentary: Serving More Than One Master In American Adversarial Contexts
Fopma, M. – Standpoints in literary reviews
Freeman, J.B. – Argument Structure and Disciplinary Perspective
Fulmer, C.L. – Critical Thinking: Assessment, Flow Charts and Computers
Fusfield, W.D. – “Scorching Irony, Not Convincing Argument, is Needed”: Frederick Douglass on Some Rhetorical Limitations of Argumentation
Gabbay, D.M. & Woods, J. – Ad Baculum is not a Fallacy!
Garssen, B. – The nature of symptomatic argumentation
Gerritsen, S. – The history of the enthymeme
Gilbert, M.A. – Language, words and expressive speech acts
Girle, R.A. – Dialethic dialogue
Goloubev, V. – Looking at Argumentation through Communicative Intentions: Ways to Define Fallacies
Gonda, J. – How Rhetoric Became A Science
Goodnight, G.Th. & Hingstman, D.B. – Root metaphors and critical inquiry into social controversies: Redeeming Stephen Pepper in and for the study of argument
Goodwin, J. – Good argumentation without resolution
Govier, T. – Argument, Adversariality, and Controversy
Graham, K. – Normative argumentation in a pluralist world
Gratton, C. – Viciousness and Actual Infinity in Aristotle’s Infinite Regress Arguments
Grennan, W. – The Role Of Arguer Credibility In Argument Evaluation
Groarke, L. – The Pragma-Dialectics of Visual Argument
Gronbeck, B.E. – A General Theory of Public Argumentation: Death and Re-birth?
Grootendorst, R. – Innocence by dissociation. A pragma-dialectical analysis of the fallacy of incorrect dissociation in the Vatican document ‘We remember: A reflection on the Shoah’
Haaften, T. van – Definitions in legal discussions
Hage, J. – Constitutive rules and rules of inference
Hample, D. – Pragma-Dialectical Analysis of the Inquisition
Hample, D. & Benoit, P.J. – Must Arguments be Explicit and Violent? A Study of Naïve Social Actors’ Understandings
Hansen, H.V. – Argumental deduction: A programme for informal logic
Hazen, M.D. & Lenzmeier, S. – Methods for Arguer Reconstruction of Arguments
Heberle, V.M. – Two kinds of argument in editorials of women’s magazines
Heeney, T. – Visualizing Recognition
Herbeck, D.A. – ‘Three Strikes’ and ‘Hail Mary’ Passes: Sports Metaphors in Public Argument
Hicks, D. – Public Reason and the Political Character of Reasonableness
Hitchcock, D. – Probabilification
Hoaglund, J. – Informal Logic: The Two Schools
Hoeken, H. – The perceived and actual persuasiveness of different types of inductive arguments
Hohmann, H. – Legal rhetoric and dialectic in the renaissance: Topica Legalia and Status Legales
Hollihan, Th.A., Klumpp, J.F. and Riley, P. – Public Argument in the Post-Mass Media Age
Hoppin, S. – The Changing Ethos of Physicians and Implications for Their Ability to Persuade
Horn, R.E. – Using Argumentation Analysis to Examine History and Status of a Major Debate in Artificial Intelligence and Philosophy
Horwitz, L.D. – ‘Blocking the Enthymeme’ Does it Unblock Identity Problems in Argumentation
Ilie, C. and Hellspong, L. – Arguing from Clichés: Communication and Miscommunication
Jackson, S. – The Importance of Being Argumentative: Designing Disagreement into Teaching/Learning Dialogues
Jacobs, S. – Argumentation as Normative Pragmatics
Janas, M.J. – 30,000 Feet Over the Smithsonian: Authenticity and Vicarious Collective Memory
Johnson, R.H. – The problem of truth for theories of argument
Jones, C. – Democratic Justice, Argumentative Dialogue, and Political Legitimacy
Jørgensen, C. and Kock, C. – The rhetorical audience in public debate and the strategies of vote-gathering and vote-shifting
Kane, Th. – Public Argument and Civil Society: The Cold War Legacy as a Barrier to Deliberative Politics
Kaptein, H.- Abductive Limits to Artificial Intelligence in Adjudication Pervasive problems of analogy, e contrario and circumstantial evidence
Kasle, S. – Promoting Interscholastic Debate Among Tallahassee Secondary Schools
Kauffeld, F.J. – The Good Case for Practical Propositions: Limits of the Arguer’s Obligation to Respond to Objections
Kienpointner, M. – Figures of Speech: Definition, Description and Critical Evaluation
Kjeldsen, J.E. – Visual Rhetoric – From Elocutio To Inventio
Kloosterhuis, H. – Final but not infallible. Two dimensions of judicial decisions
Krabbe, E.C.W. – The Dialectic of Quasi-Logical Arguments
Kruse, J. – Fantasy themes and rhetorical visions in the ‘BRENT SPAR’ crisis: an analysis of articles appearing in German and French newspapers
Laar, J.A. van – The use of ambiguous expressions in discussions
Lakatos, L. – Giving Reasons in Intricate Cases: An Empirical Study in the Sociology of Argumentation
Langsdorf, L. – The Tacit Dimension in Argumentation
Lapintie, K. – The Concept of Resolving Differences of Opinion and its Practical Implications in Planning Theory
Latonero, M. – Shifting legitimation strategies in the public sphere: The case of the National Endowment for the Arts
Leff, M. – Rhetorical Prolepsis and the Dialectical Tier of Argumentation
Levi, D.S. – Teaching Logic: How to Overcome the Limitations of the Classroom
Liu, Y. – From Arguing within to Arguing across Boundaries: Globalization as a Challenge to Argumentation Studies
Lodder, A.R. – Dialogical argumentation: statement-based, argument-based and mixed models
López, C. – The Argumentative Analysis Of Literary Works And Its Importance In Teaching Argumentation
Lueken, G.-L. – How (not) to argue with ‘fundamentalists’. On the problem of arguing without a shared basis
Lumer, C. – Reductionism in Fallacy Theory
Maier, R. – Argumentation and public debate
Makau, J.M. – The Case for Cooperative Argumentation
Marttunen, M. and Laurinen, L. – Learning Of Argumentation In Face-To-Face And E-Mail Environments
Mendelson, M. – Quintilian and the Pedagogy of Argument
Mendenhall, V. – Pretending and Port-Royal Logic (Bad Reasoning and Pretend Reasoning)
Mengel, P. – The Concept Of Argumentation In Peter Singer’s ‘Practical Ethics’
Meurer, J.L. – You Think, I Know: Argumentation in Self-help Counseling
Miller, G.R. and Bunch, D. – Science and Rationalism in Warranting Assent: Examination of Congressional Environmental Arguments
Miller, M.K. – Denying the Argument of Indifference: Reclaiming the Possi- bility of Intimacy in Discourse
Mischo, Ch., Flender, J., Christmann, U. and Groeben, N. – Argumentational integrity: a training program for dealing with unfair argumentational contributions
Nardone, H. and Bassham, G. – Emotional Appeals in the Film ‘12 Angry Men’
Nemo, F. – Making a difference or not: utterances and argumentation
Newman, R.P. – The Most Powerful Engine of Cold War Argument: The Munich Analogy
Norman, A.P. – The Normative Structure of Adjudicative Dialogue
Nyan, T. – Simplement, as a metalinguistic operator
O’Keefe, D.J. – Argumentation Explicitness and Persuasive Effect: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Effects of Citing Information Sources in Persuasive Messages
Oling, E. – The Cake or the Bakery? The conceptual structure of debates between ‘revolutionaries’ and ‘reformists’
Oostdam, R. and Glopper, K. de – Students’ Skill In Judging Argument Validity
Palczewski, C.H. – Neutrality as Advocacy: The Argumentative Dynamics in a State-sponsored, ‘Neutral’, Educational Abortion Video
Plantin, C. – Arguing emotions
Plug, J. – Evaluating tests for reconstructing the structure of legal argumentation
Plumer, G. – Phenomenological Argumentative Structure
Polcar, L. and Jacobs, S. – Evasion in Question-Answer Argumentation: An Empirical Extension
Powers, L.H. – Dividing by Zero – and other mathematical fallacies
Putnam, C.E. – Arguing About Dying
Quignard, M. and Baker, M. – Conditions for Spontaneous Production of Computer-Mediated Argumentative Dialogues between Learners
Radev, S. – Judges in Argumentation Games
Raukas, M. – Arguments from Perfections
Raymond, G.A. – Duties Beyond Borders? Appeals To Moral Necessity In Statecraft
Reed, C. – Is it a Monologue, a Dialogue or a turn in a Dialogue?
Reed, C. and Daskalopulu, A. – Modelling Contractual Arguments
Rees, M.A. van – The diagnostic power of the stages of critical discussion in the analysis and evaluation of problemsolving discussions
Reygadas, P. – Legitimacy And Seduction Of War: the Declaración de la Selva Lacandona, Chiapas 1994
Ritola, J. – Wilson on Circular Arguments
Rühl, M. – Emergent vs. Dogmatic Argumentation; towards a theory of the argumentative process
Sandvik, M. – Criteria for winning and losing a political debate
Santos, C.M.M. – Evaluating ‘Pros’ and ‘Cons’: More or Less Polarised Opinions?
Schutte, P.J. – The strategies and tactics used by F.W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela in the televised debate before South Africa’s first democratic election
Schwed, M.- What makes the Reductio ad Absurdum an important tool for rationality?
Sillince, J.A.A. – The Institutionalisation Of Argumentation Within Organisational Settings
Simons, H.W. – Problematizing Standards Of Argumentation To Students
Slade, C. – Reasons to buy: Teaching reasoning through television
Slob, W.H. – What makes an argument a good one? Reasonableness rather than rationality
Snoeck Henkemans, A.F. – Argument or explanation? Propositional relations as clues for distinguishing arguments from explanations
Spranz-Fogasy, Th. – Interactional Resources of Argumentation
Starmans, R. – Validity of distributed inference; towards a formal specification of validity criteria in argumentative models
Strikwerda, R.A. – Falsification and Fieldwork in Recent American Anthropology: Argument Before and After the Mead/Freeman Controversy
Suzuki, T. – Rhetoric as ideological pronouncement: An analysis of the cardinal principles of the national entity of Japan
Tarnay, L. – On the Fallacy of Fallacy: Arguing for methodological difference: producing vs processing
Tchouechov, V. – Totalitarian argumentation: theory and practice
Tindale, C.W. – Arguing for Bakhtin
Torck, D. – Partial quotes in headlines and subheads in Le Monde. An exploration in polyphonic journalistic writing and opinion forming
Tracy, K. – The Usefulness of Platitudes in Arguments about Conduct
Tretyakova, T.P. – Sustainable development: new paradigms in discourse linguistics
Uijttewaal, T. – Quotations as arguments in literary reviews
Vassiliev, L.G. – Rational Comprehension of Argumentative Texts
Vedder, I. – Linguistic and pragma-rhetorical characteristics of argumentative discourse in L2 and L1
Verheij, B. – Argument mediation for lawyers: the presentation of arguments
Vermaak, M. – On Conversational Constraint
Vicuña, A.M. – The Improvement Of Teacher Training In Philosophy For Children Through The Pragma Dialectic Approach
Vilanova Arias, J. – Conditional Reasoning
Volquardsen, B. – Do Advertisers Argue in their Campains?
Voss, J.F. – The Narrative as an Argument Component
Vuijk, W. – Cultural reflections in argumentation: an analysis of survey interviews
Walton, D. – The Identity Crisis of Informal Logic
Wander, Ph.C. and Lorimer, M. – The Guggenheim: A Rhetorical Turn in Architecture
Weger Jr., H. – The effects of dialectical fallacies in interpersonal and small group discussions: Empirical evidence for the pragma-dialectical approach
Weinstein, M. – Truth and Argument
Williams, D.C. – Encompassing And Enacting Dialectic: Kenneth Burke’s Theory Of Dramatism
Wolski, S.L. and Jacobs, S. – Presumptive Reasoning and the Pragmatics of Assent: The Case of Argument Ad Ignorantiam
Woods, J. – Slippery Slopes. Slope: The reciprocal of a node on a curve or surface
Wreen, M.J. – A Few Remarks on the Individuation of Arguments
Wright, M.H. – Greek Mythic Conceptions of Persuasion
Yano, Y. – The Irony of ‘Debate’: A Sociological Analysis on the Introduction of ‘Debate’ Education in Japan
Yaskevitch, Y. – On The Role Of Ethical And Axiological Arguments In The Modern Science
Young, M.J. and Launer, M.K. – The Final Days: The Development of Argumentative Discourse in the Soviet Union
Zagar, I.Z. – From Topos To Locus To Topos: Between Aristotle And Ducrot
Ziegelmueller, G. and Parson, D.W. Linguistically Sound Arguments