ISSA Proceedings 2014 ~ Persuasion,Visual Rhetoric And Visual Argumentation

• by: Georges Roque, Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), France

Abstract: It is often said that images are excellent persuasive means. However, if images are persuasive, can they also be argumentative? After discussing authors who have tried to fill the gap between rhetoric and argumentation (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, Reboul, Bonhomme), I will argue that the same figures or tropes can have both a persuasive and an argumentative function.
Keywords: metonymy, persuasion, visual argumentation, visual rhetoric.

1. Introduction
The relationship between visual rhetoric and visual argumentation is a topic to which several essays have been dedicated. Some scholars deal with it in a general way (Blair, 2004; Kjeldsen 2012). Others focus on figures or tropes in particular (for antithesis, van Belle, 2009). Indeed, it has becoming a sub-field in the domain of visual argumentation. That said, the way in which visual rhetoric and visual argumentation have been related is not completely satisfactory. I will try to show that most attempts to link rhetoric and argumentation are based on the assumption that figures of rhetoric are above all persuasive. This assumption has a dramatic consequence upon visual argumentation, specifically because one argument against visual argumentation is that images are merely persuasive. As a result, considering visual rhetoric as persuasive would not reinforce visual argumentation, but rather critiques against it. Furthermore, another critique must be taken into account: in the frequent case of mixed media, i.e. when an argument is displayed in both words and images (such as in ads or commercials), the text alone is supposed to be argumentative, while the image would be merely persuasive (Adam & Bonhomme, 2005, p. 194 & 217).

So, in the first part of this paper, I will examine some of the principal ways figures of rhetoric and argumentation have been related in order to determine the extent to which figures have been considered as arguments. Then, in the second part, I will argue that some figures of rhetoric can be persuasive and argumentative at the same time.
Simply stated, I am interested in the argumentativity of figures. In saying this, I am using a French concept (argumentativité) that was coined by Ducrot and is used in the French theory of argumentation in order to refer to figures (Bonhomme, 2009; Plantin, 2009). This concept essentially suggests that an utterance can have an argumentative value instead of being limited to providing merely informational value (Anscombre et Ducrot, 1986, p. 91). Such an argumentative value comes from the fact that we can find, in an enunciate, elements that allow for a given conclusion by way of a commonplace, which Ducrot calls a topos (Ducrot, 1992). However, this concept is used in a slightly different way when applied to figures: in this case, it refers to their argumentative value, which can be considered as persuasive or argumentative, in this case when figures provide reasons to support a claim. Note that in what follows, I use the adjective “argumentative” with this restrictive meaning, unlike those who use it in a broader way, i.e. including all mean of influencing the addressee.[i] Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2014 ~ The Argumentative Relevance Of Rhetorical Strategies In Movie Trailers

• by: Chiara Pollaroli, Institute of Argumentation, Linguistics and Semiotics, University of Lugano, Switzerland

Abstract: Movie trailers are hybrid (combining narrative and advertising) audiovisual discourse genres that exploit a carefully selected re-montage of moving and still images, sound, music, voice-over, intertitles, etc. to persuade potential spectators/consumers that a forthcoming movie is worth watching. I hypothesize that movie trailers reach their goal by advancing monomodal (e.g. only pictorial or only verbal) and multimodal arguments and by employing monomodal and multimodal rhetorical schemas and tropes (e.g. metonymy and synecdoche).
Keywords: dispositio, elocutio, inventio, loci, movie trailers, metonymy, multimodal argumentation, multimodality, synecdoche.

1. Introduction
This is an exploratory study which looks at movie trailers as discourse genres from a rhetorical and argumentative point of view.
With this study, I wish to contribute to the research on visual/multimodal argumentation and the research on the relationship and isomorphism between rhetorical figures/tropes and argumentative topoi (or loci). On the one hand, the study on visual/multimodal argumentation has flourished since a special issue of Argumentation and Advocacy came out in 1996. This year marks a shift in the studies on argumentation: since then, scholars have become more and more aware of the fact that real argumentative discourses in real contexts do not convey arguments only verbally but exploit all the semiotic resources available to make their point and to persuade people. On the other hand, the study of the link between patterns of elocutio from ornatus (i.e. rhetorical figures and tropes) and patterns of inventio (i.e. argumentative loci) is not completely new. The author of the website Silva Rhetoricae puts into question the sharp division between tropes and topoi:
The difference between a figure and a topic of invention, then, may sometimes simply be a matter of degree, or it may be a matter of whether one views the strategy as one of expression of an idea (an issue of style) or the composition or discovery of an idea or argument (an issue of invention). The point is, we should recognize the close proximity of the figures and the topics of invention.

In order to understand the role of rhetorical figures/tropes, Fanhestock (1999, p. 23) suggests “shift[ing] the emphasis from what the figures are to what it is they do particularly well”, that is “epitomize lines of reasoning.” Also, Tindale (2004) says that figures are arguments if they engage the audience in a premise-conclusion process. More recently, Kjeldsen (2012) has investigated how tropes contribute to the inferential reconstruction of enthymemes in advertisements. He argues that pictorial rhetorical figures delimit the interpretation of the message of an advertisement and evoke the intended argument. I have tried to contribute to this line of research in Pollaroli and Rocci (forthcoming).

Movie trailers are an interesting discourse genre to be explored because of their multimodal and hybrid nature. Unfortunately, they have hardly ever raised scientific interest, as Carmen Maier (2011) complains about. Movie trailers are multimodal discourse genres because they combine meaning manifested through different semiotic modes such as moving and still images, sound, music, written and spoken language. As Dornaleteche Ruiz (2007) says, movie trailers are shows of other shows, they are audiovisual discourses anticipating and promoting other audiovisual discourses. Indeed, movie trailers are communicative practices that employ the same semiotic modes (and often the same media, especially when they are broadcast in cinemas) of the communicative practices they promote. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2014 ~ The Method Of Peer Evaluation For Argument: The Learning Process Of Japanese College Students

• by: Mika Nakano - Faculty of Engineering, Fukuoka Institute of Technology, Japan

Abstract: This paper aims at (1) introducing a teaching method of peer evaluation for argument especially for students who learn debating for the first time, and (2) examining their learning process. The curriculum consisted of fifteen classes (90 minutes) for a half-year period, and was used for college freshmen in the engineering department. After the classes, most students understood the importance of peer evaluation, and the average score of self-recognition toward peer evaluation became higher.
Keywords: Peer evaluation, College freshman, Debate, Argument, Learning process

1. Introduction
Recently, in Japan, argument education has drawn increasing attention from elementary to higher levels, as a means of cultivating argumentative skills as well as developing human resources in a globalized world. Argument skill is recognized as the framework which reflects thinking skills or thinking processes (Tomida & Maruno, 2004). Teaching how to argue with peers is the one of the important goals in higher education. In those classes, peer evaluation is sometimes introduced to improve learner’s individual ability as well as to develop community of practice. Nakano (2007) found that to cultivate argument skills learners need to learn the stratified argument skills step by step and apply those skills to specific appropriate situations. Through peer evaluation, learners can accumulate the knowledge and skill of argument by exchanging comments with each other. It helps learners to foster self-understanding about what they have learned and have not learned. Learners acquire the viewpoint of evaluator and find their own task, which leads deep understanding on complicated phenomena of argument (Nakano, 2013).

Previous research reported that peer evaluation is effective as a way to educational evaluation based on the new ability evaluation (Cousins & Whitmore，1988). Along with the popularization of E-Learning, a lot of programs and systems include evaluation in the learning process of WBT (Web Based Training). In ordinary classes, peer-evaluation and self-evaluation are used in bulletin board system (Nakahara et al., 2002), video-on-demand and web-database. These effects were tested in the research by learners’ satisfaction and motivation toward classes. However, empirical studies about how to teach peer evaluation in argument are scarce and its effect has not been sufficiently tested yet. The problem here is that teachers who have tried debate education experienced difficulties, as stating opinions to others is sometimes too hard for Japanese students mentally and technically (Inoue & Nakano, 2006; Nakano & Maruno, 2012).

The authors have done research on the new system of argument education using peer evaluation in these years. Nakano (2012) described the importance and the way of peer evaluation. In the author’s laboratory, the research on the effects of peer evaluation were conducted in 2011 (Hirata, 2012) and in 2012 (Shibata, 2013) Based on these studies, this paper aims at (1) introducing a teaching method of peer evaluation for argument especially for college students who learn debating for the first time, and (2) examining their learning process for two years. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2014 ~ Argument Operators And Hinge Terms In Climate Science

• by: Gordon R. Mitchell & John Lyne - Department of Communication, University of Pittsburgh, USA

Abstract: Climate scientist James Hansen’s use of we call ‘hinge terms’ – such as ‘dangerous’ and ‘tipping point’- operate to reconfigure argumentation on global warming by pre-scripting headlines of media coverage on scientific findings. Study of this case stands to elucidate an understudied aspect of the global warming controversy, as well as contribute to understanding of how ‘argument operators’ function to relocate arguments into different contexts, with potential implications for argumentation theory.
Keywords: global warming, argument activity type, rhetorical figures, James Hansen, rhetoric of science

1. Introduction
The intellectual roots of American argumentation scholarship intertwine with the tradition of public address criticism, a fact that helps account for the centrality of context in the work of prominent American scholars of argument (e.g., Newman 1961; Zarefsky 1990). The recent launch of the Dutch journal Argumentation in Context, along with a new book series by the same name, provides an occasion to explore how the American approach to criticism of public argument in situated contexts relates to new features of pragma-dialectics that emphasize contextual features of argumentation, such as the concept of “argumentative activity types” (van Eemeren & Houtlosser 2009).

Considerable attention has been devoted in pragma-dialectics to understanding how context may “discipline” norms for judging the soundness of arguments that unfold within a particular argumentative activity type (van Eemeren & Houtlosser 2009, p. 15). Left understudied, however, is the question of what happens when an argument shifts from one activity type to another, and further, what moves by interlocutors might spur, or block, such shifts.

We use the term “argument operators” to refer to detectable moves that change argument modalities. Our focus here is on operators that relocate arguments within different normative contexts. While context is featured in various ways within the literature of argumentation (e.g. fields, argumentation activity types), it is normally taken to be a form of pre-figured ground that constrains or regulates what is possible within the given context. Our focus differs in that it calls attention to argumentative strategies that relocate an existing argument within a different context, thereby changing the norms and constraints that pertain to the argument.[i]

The specific argument operator that is our concern here is what we call the “hinge term,” and the case of climate scientist James Hansen’s argumentation on global warming provides an apt point of departure for our inquiry. The effect of the hinge term, as one type of argument operator, we contend, is to significantly affect the tenor and trajectory of climate change arguments. In particular, Hansen’s controversial use of hinge terms such as ‘dangerous’ and ‘tipping point’ in his peer reviewed journal articles operate to pivot his argumentation on global warming from the context of professional scientific discourse into the context of general public argument. In what follows, background on the Hansen case (in part two) paves the way for critical analysis of his strategic deployment of hinge terms (in part three). Part four draws lessons from the case study to sketch a speculative taxonomy of argument operators and open discussion about the possible utility of the concept. A concluding section reflects on how our intervention relates to ongoing work on argument context in pragma-dialectics. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2014 ~ Verbs Of Appearance And Argument Schemes: Italian Sembrare As An Argumentative Indicator

• by: Johanna Miecznikowski & Elena Musi, Istituto di Studi italiani, Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, Switzerland

Abstract: This paper investigates the role of verbs of appearance as argumentative indicators analysing the uses of the Italian verb sembrare (‘seem’) in a sample of 40 texts chosen from a corpus of reviews, editorials and comment posts. An analysis conducted within the framework of the Argumentum Model of Topics, shows that the verb, in its evidential-inferential uses, indicates specific argument schemes of the symptomatic as well as the causal type.
Keywords: argumentative indicators, Argumentum Model of Topics, causal argumentation, inferential evidentiality, Pragma-Dialectics, symptomatic argumentation, syntagmatic argument schemes, verbs of appearance

1. Introduction
This paper addresses the relations between verbs of appearance and argument schemes, taking as an example the Italian verb sembrare (‘to seem’) in its function as an argumentative indicator[i]. In the framework of Pragma-Dialectics, the notion of argumentative indicators has been defined as including “all words and expressions that refer to any of the moves that are significant to the argumentation process” (van Eemeren, Houtlosser & Snoeck Henkemans, 2007, p. 2). Such argumentative clues can belong to different classes of linguistic items, ranging from verbs to conjunctions and to various kinds of discourse markers[ii]. Within Pragma-Dialectics, argumentative indicators have been considered, above all, from the point of view of the analyst facing the task of argumentative reconstruction. In this perspective, it has been underlined that indicators may work at different levels, signaling, for example, the engagement of the interactants in a particular stage of a critical discussion[iii], argumentative moves or the presence of a particular argumentation scheme. From a linguistic point of view, it is crucial to acknowledge that the usefulness of indicators for the analyst depends on their usefulness for the participants engaged in an argumentative interaction. Like other aspects of textual or conversational structure, the construction of argumentative relations at the different levels mentioned above is, in the first place, the participants’ task; functional categories are emic, not etic (Pike 1954). What justifies the attribution of an indicator function to a linguistic expression is, then, the potential of the expression to guide interlocutors and readers in this task. In any particular context, this potential will depend both on the expression’s functions coded in a relatively stable manner in the linguistic system (e.g. in the lexicon or in the domain of recurrent syntactic constructions and discourse routines) and on the specific pragmatic configuration (Bazzanella & Miecznikowski 2009) the expression is used in. As we will argue in our paper, corpus-based linguistic analysis, focused on single expressions and their contexts of occurrence, can fruitfully contribute to a better understanding of argumentative indicators in this sense. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2014 ~ Epideictic As A Condition Of Disagreement

• by: Ingrid Mayeur & Loïc Nicolas, Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres, GRAL, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium

Abstract: Our paper aims to examine several aspects of the epideictic genre according to the tradition of the Brussels School of Rhetoric. We study, at first, the confused notions as a specific material for the rhetorical art, and, in particular, for the epideictic genre as they contribute to create the social concord. Then, we establish a relationship between disagreement and epideictic genre after the Perelman’s New Rhetoric. Here, our idea is to show how disagreement feeds the argumentative nature of this third rhetorical genre. In a democratic society, the epideictic genre needs to work well to allow disagreement; and likewise, disagreement requires always a well-functioning epideictic. According to Perelman, if the epideictic genre constitutes the foundations of the rhetorical system, or even its “crowning”, it is also the center, the mobile part of this system, in other words: its limbs.
Keywords: Chaim Perelman, confused notions, concord, disagreement, epideictic genre, Eugène Dupréel, rationality, rhetoric.

1. Introduction
Our paper aims to examine several aspects of the epideictic genre according to the tradition of the “Brussels School of Rhetoric” started with Eugène Dupréel and Chaim Perelman. We study how, in the epideictic genre, the “confused notions” contribute to create social concord. The relationship between disagreement and epideictic genre in Perelman’s New Rhetoric will then be considered to show how disagreement feeds the argumentative nature of this third rhetorical genre.

To start with, taking as a frame the perspective of Emmanuelle Danblon, in which rhetoric is a technè and the orator is a craftsman, we would like to show how the “confused notions” (in the sense given by Eugène Dupréel) could be shaped in a specific way, according to the desired rhetorical purpose, to become efficient tools, which will be destined to a “good use” by the orator.

2. “Using value” of confused notions and its role in the epideictic genre
2.1. Origins of the confused notions
Already before the First World War, Eugène Dupréel had suggested a re-establishment of the “confused thought”, wishing to exceed the classical dichotomy clarity vs. darkness. Confusion and instability, like clarity and stability, are essential components of some notions, especially values as justice, happiness, merit or freedom. In Dupréel’s conception, notions are not a reflection of the world but a tool with an acting value:
Avant d’être classées comme connaissances claires ou confuses, les connaissances servent à quelque chose, à la vie des individus et des sociétés; les mensonges même ont leur utilité, on ne les produirait pas sans cela. La connaissance est donc une valeur d’action. […] Une notion, tout ce que désigne un mot ou une phrase, cela n’est pas élaboré par un souci de correspondance avec un objet réel, c’est un instrument dont on se sert et dont la valeur se mesure d’abord à son rendement. (Dupréel, 1949, p. 332).

Before being classified as clear or confused knowledge, knowledge is used to something, in the lives of persons and societies; lies even have their uses, they will not happen without it. Knowledge is therefore an acting value. […]. A notion, everything that refers to a word or phrase, is not developed by a desire to match with a real object; it is a tool that is used and its value is measured primarily to performance[i]. Read more