ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Visual Tropes And Figures As Visual Argumentation

• by: Jens E. Kjeldsen - University of Bergen, Norway, University of Södertörn, Stockholm, Sweden

During the latter part of the 20^th century, and in particular during the last two decades, advertising has become increasingly visual (cf. Leiss et al. 2005, Gisbergen et al. 2004, Pollay 1985). Imagery now dominates advertising. Considering advertising as a kind of argumentation, we may ask how we actually argue by means of pictures, or more specifically, how we argue with ads that are predominantly visual.

In this article, I will argue that visual rhetorical figures in advertising – meaning both tropes and figures – are not only ornamental, but also support the creation of arguments about product and brand. My claim is that rhetorical figures direct the audience to read arguments into advertisements that are predominantly pictorially mediated. Pictures are ambiguous, but rhetorical figures can help limit the possible interpretations, thus evoking the intended arguments.

1. Pictorial Argumentation
This article limits itself to examining a certain kind of pictorial argumentation, namely visual tropology in commercial advertising. However, it should be acknowledged that several works have accounted for the existence and nature of visual argumentation in general (e.g. Finnegan 2001, Birdsell & Groarke 2007, Kjeldsen 2007, Groarke 2009). Drawing upon such works, we may assume that, in spite of the reservations of some researchers (e.g. Flemming 1996, Johnson 2004), it is both possible and beneficial to consider pictures and other instances of visual communication as argumentation. My own view is that visual argumentation is characterised by an enthymematic process, in which the visuals (e.g. pictures) function as cues that evoke intended meanings, premises and lines of reasoning. This is possible because an argument, whether visual or verbal, is not a text, or “a thing to be looked for, but rather a concept people use, a perspective they take” (Brockreide 1992). Argumentation is communicative action, which is performed, evoked, and must be understood in a rhetorical context of opposition. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – The Relationship Between Reflective Reasoning And Argument Skill

• by: Susan L. Kline - The Ohio State University, USA

1. Introduction
Argument scholars have articulated a conception of argument skills that can be used to examine the relation of meta-cognitive knowledge to skillful argument use. Walton (1989), for instance, suggests that skillful argument includes proving your own thesis, challenging your opponent’s claim and reasoning, and honestly responding to your opponent’s challenges. Van Eemeren and Grootendorst (2004) believe that to be a reasonable discussant, one should at least defend one’s standpoint with relevant argumentation, applied with appropriate argument schemes, clear formulations and without falsely attributing starting points or unexpressed premises to one’s opponent.

Applying a constructivist framework, four competence issues could be conceived in relation to any specific argument skill. These include the nature and forms of specific functional competencies, such as what counts as skillful argument; the determinants of skillful behavior for specific competencies, such as the abilities and motivations necessary to engage in argumentation; the antecedents of specific competencies, such as socialization experiences related to argument skills or educational efforts designed to cultivate argument skills; and finally the consequences of individual differences in specific competencies, such as the effects of particular argument skills (Burleson, 2007). Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Keynote Address: Rhetorical Argument

• by: James F. Klumpp - University of Maryland

At this conference four years ago, one of my European colleagues began a conversation with the question:  What is your project?  My response – “rhetorical argument” – drew a confused stare and an “Oh!” As I pondered this moment, the texture of modern argumentation studies came to the fore. We are a coalition of approaches and projects, gazing somewhat at the same human phenomenon, but from different perspectives and with different sensitivities. In this coalition, there are groups that we recognize and generally understand regardless of our own interests. There is the pragma-dialectical approach most vibrantly practiced under the influence of those here at the University of Amsterdam. There are the informal logicians spawned principally from philosophy departments in North America. There are the studies of conversational argument applying qualitative and quantitative social scientific methods to understand day-to-day interpersonal argument.  These are three easily identifiable groups.

But those whose work is closest to mine are not so easily captured in a single thought or with a single name. There are those of us who study the history of the theory of argumentation from the classical period to the present. There are those who examine arguments in their historical context, tracing their power to direct social order in particular ways.  There are those who are concerned with the place of argument in political processes, the challenges of the moment in the texture of democratic life, and the improvement of argument’s contributions to the public sphere. In fact, these diverse concerns were arguably the founding agenda of modern argumentation studies. Yet, those pursuing them today often seem to us – at least to my interlocutor at the last conference in Amsterdam – as more intellectual waifs than children of a common and seminal argumentation study. So, my purpose today is to focus, to explain, and to encourage: to provide an account of that parentage; to locate the origins of the commonality in this work; to trace its development to the present day; and to bring its blurry lines into sharper focus; to consider the questions and approaches of rhetorical argument. To accomplish this purpose, I will offer a history, a characterization, and finally a distillation. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Foreign Words As Argumentative Devices: Japanese Words In French Newspapers

• by: Kyoko Koma - Vytautas Magnus University

1. Issues
What is the argumentative intention of using Japanese words in foreign contexts? Prior to the 1990s, traditional Japanese words known in France consisted of geisha, samouraï, sushi, etc. In the 1990s, when Japanese popular culture such as mangas, extravagant street fashions, and video games, was imported to France and other countries, the term kawaii started to appear in French media. In our paper, which focuses on the traditional Japanese word geisha and the recently appearing Japanese word kawaii and classifies the two words as xenism or peregrinism, we examine the argumentative functions used in contemporary French national newspapers Le Figaro (conservator), Libération (left), and Le Monde (centre-left), published from 1995 to 2008.[i] How is each word used as an argumentative device? Are there differences in the argumentative functions of the two words? Or are these functions similar?

2. The Foreign Words Geisha and Kawaii in French Context
72 Japanese words appear in the French Dictionary CD-ROM of Le Petit Robert 2008, of which 69 words are nouns and 3 words are nouns and adjectives: nippon, zen, and kamikaze. Geisha appears in this dictionary, but kawaii does not.

The French dictionary Le Robert dictionnaire historique de la langue française indicates that the term geisha was ‘firstly Gallicised as guecha (1887) [in the novel Madame Chrysanthème by Pierre Loti], and it was rewritten as geisha (1889) according to the transliteration of the Japanese word.’ The term geisha is traditionally known in France; Geisha means ‘Japanese singer and dancer who is rented for certain meetings and amuses the men with her conversation, her music, and her dance.’ Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Logically Defending For Publication: An Analysis Of The Review Process Of Logical Self-Defense

• by: Takuzo Konishi - University of Pittsburgh, USA

Although there has been some historical research on the development of argumentation studies in the US and Canada, it is safe to say that history of argumentation studies on the second half of the last century is less developed than the theory and empirical research of argumentation. As other fields of inquiries such as economics, political theory, and communication studies have history of those inquiries as their components, history of argumentation studies should exist and constitute the field of inquiry called argumentation. In addition to refining theories of argumentation proposed by Toulmin, the New Rhetoric Project, informal logicians, Pragma-Dialecticians, we need to examine under what historical contingencies those theories were proposed and defended. With a hope of developing history of argumentation as a legitimate subfield of argumentation studies, this paper attempts to offer a historical-rhetorical analysis of one pivotal argumentative exchange for the development of informal logic: the review process for publication of Logical Self-Defense[i].

In the review process of the manuscript of Logical Self-Defense, Johnson and Blair had to overcome arguments against publication by two reviewers. What were those objections and how did Johnson and Blair attempt to fulfill their dialectical obligations? Given that the triad criteria of argument evaluation (relevance, sufficiency, and acceptability) offered in Logical Self-Defense have been influential to introductory textbooks and research on informal logic, non-publication of Logical Self-Defense must have presented a different landscape of argumentation theory in general, and informal logic in particular. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Pragmatic Logic: The Study Of Argumentation In The Lvov-Warsaw School

• by: Marcin Koszowy - University of Białystok

1. The main question
Logical studies in Poland are mainly associated with the Lvov-Warsaw School (LWS), labeled also the Polish school in analytical philosophy (Lapointe, Woleński, Marion & Miskiewicz 2009; Jadacki 2009).[i] The LWS was established by Kazimierz Twardowski at the end of the 19th century in Lvov (Woleński 1989, Ch. 1, part 2). Its main achievements include developments of mathematical logic (see Kneale & Kneale 1962; McCall 1967; Coniglione, Poli & Woleński 1993) that became world-wide famous thanks to such thinkers as Jan Łukasiewicz, Stanisław Leśniewski, Alfred Tarski, Bolesław Sobociński, Andrzej Mostowski, Adolf Lindenbaum, Stanisław Jaśkowski and many others (see e.g. Woleński 1995, p. 369-378).

In ‘the golden age of Polish logic’, which lasted for two decades (1918-1939), ‘formal logic became a kind of international visiting card of the School as early as in the 1930s – thanks to a great German thinker, Scholz’ (Jadacki 2009, p. 91).[ii] Due to this fact, some views on the study of reasoning and argumentation in the LWS were associated exclusively with a formal-logical (deductivist) perspective, according to which a good argument is the one which is deductively valid. Having as a point of departure a famous controversy over the applicability of formal logic (or FDL – formal deductive logic – see Johnson & Blair 1987; Johnson 1996; Johnson 2009) in analyzing and evaluating everyday arguments, the LWS would be commonly associated with deductivism.[iii] Read more