ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Adaptation To Adjudication Styles In Debates And Debate Education

• by: Masako Suzuki, Jiro Hasumi, YoshiroYano & Kazumi Sakai - Keio University, Keio University, Chuo University and Keio University

1. Introduction
Academic discussion over debate adjudication paradigms gained enthusiasm in 80s and early 90s. Main contributors were in the U.S. and the discussion was based on how collegiate debate tournaments were run and judged at NDT, CEDA and others sharing the same (or at least similar) format(s) with months of research and preparation for a topic and adjudicator pool (Prepared Debate Contests). Japanese debating community then was with similar debate formats and introduced the theories developed there. Now after almost two decades from then, the number and size of international tournaments have grown. Major international tournaments are with impromptu topics and had been with a separated adjudication pool till recent (Impromptu Debate Contests). Analysis on the adjudication paradigm of the later community is a necessary update not only for participating students who wish to learn debating in both paradigms but especially for researchers who hope to analyze how audience evaluate arguments. As Zarefsky wrote, if the starting point of analysis were the contest debate then the inquiry into paradigms would be trivialized (Zarefsky, 1982, p.141). Analysis on how the adjudication paradigm affects the decision by audience and its repercussion to the argumentation of speakers stays significant in shaping better rules for substantial debates happening everyday in the society.

This paper[i] first applies the theories and terms used in the discussion on debate paradigms in 1980s and 1990s to explain how adjudication is done at international tournaments nowadays. Then we elaborate the difference in adjudication between two distinctive debate communities. Lastly, we examine how students shift and adjust their speeches according to the new adjudication style to them and how the difference of adjudication style influences educational effect of debating programs. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – An Analysis Of TV Debate: Democratic Party Of Japan Leadership Between Hatoyama And Okada

• by: Takeshi Suzuki - Meiji University, Tokyo Takayuki Kato - Seiwa University, Chiba

On May 11, 2009, the party leader Ichiro Ozawa announced his decision to step down under a shadow of financial scandal which allegedly lowered the support rate for the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)[i]:
“I have decided to step down [from the post of DPJ president] to make our party unity stronger so as to secure victory in the upcoming House of Representatives election and to realize a regime change,” Ozawa said at the press conference. (Editorial; Public disapproval, 2009, p. 4)

With Ozawa’s resignation, the party executives set the leadership election for May 16. It was just five days from the announcement till the election so that they would avoid having a long interregnum. Indeed, they needed to prepare for the Lower House election scheduled in the upcoming summer. On May 12 to their supporters, and on 14 officially, with the damaged public confidence in the DPJ, the two candidates Yukio Hatoyama and Katsuya Okada ran for the party leadership election to win trust not only from its 221 lawmakers, or the voters of the party election, but also from the Japanese public, who would essentially be choosing a prime minister in the upcoming House of Representatives election. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Argumentology About The Possibility Of Dialogue Between New Logic, Rhetoric, Dialectics

• by: Viktor Tchouechov - Academy of Public Administration, Minsk

1.What is Argumentology?
Firstly, the term “argumentology” was sporadically used in 80-ies by Dutch scholars E. Barth, E. Krabbe, and J.L. Martens as a synonymous of theory of argumentation (Barth & Martens 1981). But the term did not receive a strong support in theorists’ of argumentation circles. [i]

In 80-90-ies of XX century there were a lot of theories of argumentation, and formal dialectics (Barth & Krabbe 1982), the Amsterdam pragma-dialectic theory of argumentation, as well as the linguistic theory argumentation of J. Ascombre and O. Ducrot were the examples (Van Eemeren, Grootendorst & Kruiger 1987, Ascombre, Ducrot, 1983). Some of these theories had a proper philosophical component. A philosophical component of formal dialectics was connected with analytical philosophy, and pragma-dialectic theory of argumentation had orientation to K. Popper’s critical rationalism. However, even in 90-ies there were a lot of old and new theories of argumentation with unclear and unexpressed philosophical foundations. In that context a necessity in a relatively independent domain of philosophy of theory of argumentation research was emerged. For a philosophical domain of argumentation study I have proposed to use such term as “argumentology”. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Adversarial Principle And Argumentation: An Outline Of Italian Criminal Trial

• by: Serena Tomasi - University of Trento

1. Introduction
The object of this paper is to develop some critical considerations on the implementation of the principle of the judicial due process, restricting the survey to the Italian criminal trial. This will lead to further observations on the nature and structure of judicial argumentation.
This study is divided into three parts:

1. Firstly, I will define the scope of my research, proposing an examination of the principle of due process as principle of the trial;
2. Secondly, I will focus on the Italian judicial experience, examining the implementation of the principle of due process in criminal law. Clearly, it is by no means possible to analyse it in detail as we should examine the entire structure of today’s Italian criminal trial system. To contextualize the principle, it will suffice to recall its clearest legal application (and therefore judicial praxis): i.e. the institution of the cross-examination of witnesses;
3. Finally, it will be possible to represent a model that allows to accomplish the judicial due process, drawing upon the classical thought of Plato, Aristotle and Cicero. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Everyday Argument Strategies In Appellate Court ArgumentA Same-Sex Marriage

• by: Karen Tracy - University of Colorado

1. Introduction
(1) Exchange between Plaintiff Attorney (A-SM) and two Supreme Court Justices In re Marriage Cases, California, 03/04/08, Line 2653
A-SM: Your honors, with regards to the question to of uh possible adverse consequences, you know with- with apologies to Shakespeare, same-sex couples have come here today to praise marriage, not to bury it. Petitioners deeply value the tradition of marriage and wish to participate in it with all of the joy and responsibility that that brings. There’s absolutely no evidence uh in the record here or elsewhere that permitting same-sex couples to marry elsewhere has in [any-
CJ: [I thought when you invoked Shakespeare, you were gonna invoke the line, “what’s in a name?”
((laughter))
A-SM: Also would have been very appropriate.
J-M: Also with apologies to Shakespeare, I thought you were gonna say, “a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.”
((laughter))
A-SM: Names are very important, your honor um-

In 2008 and 2009 California’s Supreme Court issued two opinions regarding the legality of the state restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples. In the first case, In Re Marriage, the Court overturned the state’s existing marriage laws, ruling that denying same-sex couples the right to participate in state-sanctioned ceremonies that labeled unions “marriage” was denying the couples a “fundamental interest in liberty and personal autonomy” ( p. 7). In the second case, Strauss v. Horton, the Court upheld the legality of a constitutional amendment, Proposition 8, which was a ballot initiative that restricted marriage to one man and one woman that California voters approved in the months after the Court ruling in the Marriage Cases. In justifying its opinion, the Court argued that giving a different name to the legally-recognized relationships of same-sex couples was not a significant enough change to count as a constitutional revision, and hence Proposition 8 was a legal amendment. In both cases – as the above moment of levity suggests – the constitutional issues revolved around the significance of a term. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Towards An Empirically Plausible Classification Of Argumentative Markers

• by: Assimakis Tseronis - CNRS, Laboratoire Communication et Politique, Paris

 1. Introduction
Despite the varying theoretical perspectives that argumentation scholars take when studying argumentative discourse and despite their different research goals, almost all have shown, in one way or another, interest in the linguistic realisation of argumentative moves and of other argumentative aspects that fall under their object of study. Such an interest may be seen as satisfying at least two goals. The first is a purely utilitarian one. Argumentation scholars are interested in those linguistic elements that can help them identify the units that they are studying and subsequently help them to justify their proposed analyses on some linguistic grounds. The second goal that one may have is to reach a better understanding of what language users do when they argue by studying the way they use language. These two goals are not necessarily self excluding.

In this paper[i], I present some preliminary thoughts on the subject of argumentative markers that result from an ongoing study of a large corpus of texts (in French) on the controversies surrounding the application and development of nanotechnology[ii]. Given the large number of texts and the different sources from where these texts come, a software is used that allows a semi-automatic treatment of the data. To this endeavour, linguistic elements appearing on the surface of texts that can point to the argumentative aspects of discourse in which we are interested can be highly useful. At the same time, this endeavour gives the opportunity for a theoretical discussion concerning argumentative markers, as a preliminary step to the identification, description and classification of various linguistic elements that may represent one or another type of marker. It is to this latter point, that is the theoretical preliminaries, that I focus on in this paper. Working towards refining the categories and the tools used by a software for the analysis of text corpora is a unique opportunity to ponder over the theoretical categories and concepts that one needs to have recourse to when analysing argumentative discourse.
In sections 2 and 3, I briefly present the project within which the interest in argumentative markers has arisen, and the software that is used for the analysis. In section 4, I discuss three main approaches in argumentation studies that can provide useful insights to the study of markers. In the final section, I present a working definition of argumentative markers and discuss its main elements with the use of examples taken from a part of the corpus. Read more