ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Nonverbal Communication As Argumentation

• by: Marie Gelang - Örebro University, Sweden & Jens Kjeldsen - University of Bergen, Norway. Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden

Do politicians argue with their bodies? Argumentation deals with attitudes and opinions proposed through claim and ground. It thus appears impossible for a person’s nonverbal communication to make arguments. Neither body nor voice – it seems – can create the verbal two-part structure of an argument. However, if such nonverbal communication can work as a stimulus evoking a receiver’s cognitively generated argument, then also non-verbal communication may function as rhetorical argumentation.

In this article we explore the nonverbal argumentative communication of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in the 2008 televised primary debates for the Democratic Party. Our aim is neither to describe the communication styles of the two contenders, nor to make generalizations about the nonverbal communication they employ in the debates. Instead we primarily use the analysed instances to exemplify that nonverbal communication can have argumentative functions, and to illustrate how such communication works. More specifically, we examine how nonverbal communication performs argumentative functions in acclaiming and defending the debater’s own ethos and in attacking the opponent’s ethos. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Hidden Premises, Hidden Treasures?

• by: Janne Maaike Gerlofs - University of Amsterdam

1. Introduction
Suppose one is confronted with the following argument:
(1) Argumentation theory is crucial to world peace. John Doe says so in his book Argumentation and the Rise and Fall of Empires.

How would one go about criticizing this argument? The most obvious reaction seems to be ‘who is John Doe?’ Or maybe: ‘John Doe is just saying so because he wants his research funded.’ Another criticism could be ‘Frans van Eemeren says exactly the opposite’. Or ‘John Doe also says that the moon is made of green cheese!’.
If we take look at the original argument, it is not right away clear what this criticism is directed at. It does not challenge the premise – the antagonist is not wondering whether in his book John Doe indeed did say that argumentation theory is crucial to world peace. Yet it is an effective way to argue against the argument.

It is (almost) generally accepted among argumentation theorists that critical reactions like these are directed at the hidden premise of the argument: a premise that is unexpressed but nevertheless forms part of the argumentation put forward. Moreover, most scholars agree that this premise is different from what Van Eemeren and Grootendorst have named the ´logical minimum´ a conditional sentence of which the antecedent contains the premise (or premises, in the case of coordinative argumentation) and the consequent the claim under discussion. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Reason & Intuition: The Kisceral Mode Of Communication

• by: Michael A. Gilbert - York University

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Shakespeare, Hamlet 166.

1. I have facts, you have axioms, she has intuitions
In 1994 when I first wrote about multi-modal argumentation I described four modes arguers employ when putting forward arguments, making points, defending positions, and so on. The first three were the logical, the emotional, and the visceral, this last involving physical and contextual communication. The fourth mode, and the one I viewed as most likely to cause trouble and discomfort was the kisceral mode. Let me quote myself.
The term ‘kisceral’ derives from the Japanese word ‘ki’ which signifies energy, life-force, connectedness. I introduce it as a generic, non-value-laden term to cover a wide group of communi­cative phenomenon. The kisceral is that mode of communication that relies on the intuitive, the imaginative, the religious, the spiritual, and the mystical. It is a wide category used frequently beyond the halls of academe.

I will not reiterate here my arguments for pursuing the study of kisceral arguments within Argumentation Theory, except to say that from a descriptivist point of view, we need to examine all forms of argumentation used by real arguers. (Vide Gilbert, 1997; Willard, 1989).
My purpose here is to describe a number of forms of kisceral argument some of which are very familiar and academically acceptable in order to examine the difficulties that arise when we try to find order in what some think to be chaos. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Argumentation Standards In The Assessment Of Clinical Communication Competence

• by: Kara Gilbert, Gordon Whyte and Andrea Paul - Monash University, Australia

1. Introduction
Clinical reasoning, clinical knowledge and clinical skills, which include clinical communication, are essential components of clinical competence recognized internationally in high level policy documents (PSA, 2003; CPMEC, 2006; GMC, 2009). Consequently, communication skills training (CST) has developed as an integral component of medical curricula (Brown, 2008). However, while clinical schools provide general outlines of their CST curricula, content, skills criteria and delivery modes in CST appear to vary across the sector (Bird, Gilbert et al., 2008).
Recently, clinical communication specialists have been calling for new parameters of communication that might draw on inter-disciplinary knowledge and experience to inform how healthcare communication is conceptualised (Skelton, 2008, p.154). In recent work by Gilbert and Whyte (2009; 2010), linguistic and argumentation (viz. critical reasoning) frameworks show how clinical reasoning might be made explicit in communication.   The work supports recent perspectives on clinical competence in which not merely expertise in specialised clinical knowledge but also the ability to effectively use clinical knowledge in discourse is regarded as essential (Nguyen, 2006).

In medical education, a student’s ability to effectively integrate content knowledge and clinical reasoning is demonstrated via his/her communication strategy associated with the performance of clinical skills in an oral examination, the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE). In a conventional OSCE format, a candidate is required to convey medical knowledge and/or demonstrate clinical skills by enacting scenarios with real or simulated patients (viz. actors) or performing specific tasks at several short stations of 8-15 minutes duration. The so-called standardized clinical task is performed under the observation of one or two examiners who score the candidate’s performance on a standardized marking sheet. Thus, the checklist based marking enhances inter-rater consistency and the testing of students’ performances on multiple stations increases the number and range of competencies tested. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Is “Argument” Subject To The Product/Process Ambiguity?

• by: G.C. Goddu - University of Richmond

1. Introduction
In recent work, Ralph Johnson raises several problems for the adequacy of the Logic/Rhetoric/Dialectic trichotomy and for its alleged basis–the argument as product/process/procedure trichotomy. My concern here is not with Johnson’s worries – rather it is with what Johnson leaves unchallenged. While Johnson ultimately has some reservations about argument as procedure, he leaves the product/process distinction untouched. He writes: “The distinction between product and process seems to me fairly secure. It has a longstanding history here and in other disciplines. In logic, for instance, the term ‘inference’ is understood as ambiguous as between the process of drawing an inference and the inference that results from that process.”(Johnson 2009, p. 3)

Despite its longstanding history and foundational role in argumentation theory, I am not so confident about the security of the product/process distinction as it applies to “argument” or even “inference”. I shall first articulate the conditions required for “argument” to be subject to the product/process ambiguity, and then argue that not all of the conditions are met. Finally, I shall show that some arguments for the ontological or intellectual priority of one aspect of argument over another fail given that “argument” is not subject to the process/product ambiguity. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Argumentation On Sustainability In Small Island Communities

• by: Peter Goggin - Arizona State University

1. Introduction
This essay explores oceanic island locales as rhetorical and material places/spaces and discourses on environmental sustainability. The purpose of this essay is to tease out some of the complexities not only in addressing the concept of sustainability itself, but how discourses and arguments on sustainability, particularly environmental sustainability, are shaped, constrained, constructed, and disseminated as rhetorics of place in the humanities. The first part of the paper reports on my early study on environmental remediation. The second part discusses sustainability as a rhetorical concept. The final part provides an overview of some of the initial field observations that will guide the next phase of research and analysis.

2. Bermuda: Environmental Remediation
My current work on islands and rhetorics of sustainability emerges from an earlier project involving argumentation and environmental remediation (Goggin, 2003). In 1995, the US military base on Bermuda was abruptly and unceremoniously shut down and a growing controversy over environmental clean-up of the former baselands between the US Pentagon and the Bermuda government came to a head. The negotiations between these institutions had evolved – one might also say “devolved” – into a rhetorical stalemate as each side staked out a position on its civic, legal, and environmental responsibilities that rendered effective argumentation towards resolution all but impossible. The U.S. maintained a position of caretaker of the land on the basis that it had made huge investments in American taxpayer money for over 50 years in building and maintaining both a military and civilian airport and the supporting infrastructure of roads, buildings, water reservoirs, and utilities that Bermuda, as a beneficiary, inherited at little cost. For its part, Bermuda refused to accept a position of beneficiary and instead claimed a position of landlord to the property, claiming that as a tenant, the U.S. was under no obligation to improve the leased territory and that it made temporary investments in the baselands for its own military purposes, not for local residential use, and was therefore liable for existing and future risks to Bermuda’s fragile environmental structure and ecosystems. Read more