ISSA Proceedings 2010 – The Challenges Of Training Critical Discussants: Dialectical Effectiveness And Responsibility In Strategic Maneuvering And In Science Education

• by: Gábor Zemplén and Gergely Kertész - Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Philosophy and History of Science Department

1. Lessons on Teaching Argumentation from Science Education[i]
Teaching argumentation has an obvious entry point in most educational systems through science courses and teaching science. As editors of a recent edited volume summarize: “ … there is an increasing emphasis on resting the science curriculum on a more appropriate balance between science process and citizenship skills, and factual or content knowledge of science. The main rationale for the inclusion of argumentation in the science curriculum has been twofold. First, there is the need to educate for informed citizenship where science is related to its social, economic, cultural and political roots. Second, the reliance on evidence has been problematised and linked in the context of scientific processes such as investigation, inquiries and practical work.” (Erduran and Jiménez-Aleixandre 2008, p. 19). These curricular reforms – most often connected to NOS (Nature of Science) or SSI (Socio-Scientific Issues), and CT (Critical Thinking) discussions in science education – recognize the need for the explicit teaching of argumentation, and the importance of developing students’ existing argumentative skills.

The curricular reforms, however, have rarely born the fruits that supporters and enthusiasts have expected, and that curricular descriptions demand. The results so far are somewhat discouraging with respect to NOS, SSI, and CT, and to the more general argumentative skills. They show that effective teaching of argumentation in science classes is not without difficulties: “Only a minority of people progress to the final, evaluative epistemology, in which all opinions are not equal and knowing is understood as a process that entails judgment, evaluation and argument.” (Zohar 2008, p. 256). One can argue that the curricular expectations are set too high, and do not take the cognitive development of students fully into account. Setting realistic desiderata, however, runs into methodological difficulties. The fact that the results of high-achievers is more informative of the one end of the ability spectrum than the result of weak students (Voss, Segal, and Perkins 1991) is one of the problems that need to be addressed. At present it appears that: “Some desiderata concerning epistemological understanding are never reached by a large percentage of students. This is a serious problem that most curriculum-development has to face and tackle.” (Garcia-Mila and Andersen 2008, p. 39). But whether the cognitive constraints of the students or the didactical ineffectiveness of the educational system is the (main) culprit for the rather disappointing results, is hard to tell. Didactics can surely improve, as, despite the efforts at the level of international policies about the science curriculum, “the systematic uptake of argumentation work in everyday science classrooms remains minimal” (Erduran and Jiménez-Aleixandre 2008, p. 20). Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Why Study The Overlap Between “Ought” And “Is” Anyways? On Empirically Investigating The Conventional Validity Of The Pragma-Dialectical Discussion Rules

• by: Frank Zenker - University of Lund, Sweden

1. Introduction
This paper forwards the (presumably controversial) thesis that the use-value of empirically studying the conventional validity of the pragma-dialectical discussion rules (van Eemeren & Grootendorst 2004: 190-196) is heuristic. This thesis seems natural (to me), if the consequences of a particular theoretical commitment are appreciated: When treating argumentation that supports a descriptive standpoint with a normative premise (aka. a “value sentence”), and vice versa, pragma-dialecticians incur a commitment on the transition between “ought” and “is.” This commitment amounts to embracing the “naturalistic fallacy” as a discussion move that is never appropriate.

In Section 2.1, the aim, method and main result of the recent empirical investigation of van Eemeren, Garssen and Meuffels (2009) are presented. In Section 2.2, the discussion rules’ conventional validity is discussed. Vis à vis the explanation offered by the study’s authors – or so I admit –, the theory-internal purpose of this study remains rather unclear to me. After all, as stressed by the authors, the normative content of the pragma-dialectical theory is neither open to refutation by empirical data, nor to confirmation by such data (Section 3). Therefore, I claim, the theoretical value of this investigation is heuristic (Section 4). Section 5 comments on a tension between the level of measurement and the level at which measurement is reported. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Reported Argumentation In Financial News Articles: Problems Of Reconstruction

• by: Gergana Zlatkova - Università della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano

1. Introduction
In this paper we explore the argumentative function of reported speech in economic-financial newspaper articles. The present research is based on a corpus of articles of the three main daily Italian economic-financial newspapers: Il Sole 24 Ore, Italia Oggi and MF/Milano Finanza. Why are we interested in studying the relationship between reported speech and argumentative function of economic-financial news? The analysis of economic-financial newspaper articles previously carried out shows that the predictive speech act occupies a dominant position in the discourse structure of economic financial news (Miecznikowski, Rocci, and Zlatkova in Press). Being clearly oriented towards predicting events, the information demand in the journalistic discourse domain of finance differs significantly from other domains, such as editorials, sports, crime, whose informational interest lies in narrating or commenting past events.

The reader wants to know not what has happened, but also, more importantly, what is going to happen. The analysis also showed that the predictive speech acts and their supporting arguments are sometimes attributed to unnamed, but more often to named sources, such as financial analysts, money managers, bankers. Being geared towards the decision making of investors, financial discourse is overtly or covertly argumentative. These semantic and pragmatic features of economic-financial discourse make this genre particularly interesting for investigation. The frequent use of reported speech in this genre poses a challenge to argumentative reconstruction, because it is difficult to attribute the role of protagonist to the journalist who often seems to use reported speech strategically to avoid his/her personal commitment to either the standpoint or the argument. However, in this paper we argue that the distinction between different types of reported discourses and the distinction between different forms introducing them provide important cues for determining the functions of the reported segments in the journalist’s argumentation and ascertaining to what extent the journalist is committed personally to the stated claim. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – The Ethos Of Classical Rhetoric: From Epieikeia To Auctoritas

• by: Janja Žmavc - Educational Research Institute Ljubljana (Slovenia)

From antiquity onwards rhetorical ethos has represented a concept bearing many different notions, which generally refer to a speaker’s character presentation. Despite conceptual differences ethos still plays an important part in rhetorical analysis and presents one of the elements in various contemporary rhetorical and argumentative theoretical models (proposed by prominent scholars such as Perelman, Brinton, Leff, Tindale, van Eemeren and Grootendorst, Walton etc.).

When we consider contemporary notions of ethos as being the result of a long tradition, our questions are: can a study of the ancient conceptions of rhetorical ethos still provide us with interesting and useful starting points? Might such a study refine our conception of the role of a speaker in the contemporary models of rhetorical and argumentative analysis? In search for a positive answer the aim of this paper is to present in our view some of the crucial points in the conceptualizations of classical ethos. We will try to show how ethos, when seen as a multifaceted rhetorical concept, above all things reflects different social roles of a public speaker in the Greco-Roman society. We believe that such a perspective combined with the well known ancient theoretical models of rhetorical ethos can provide us with a more thorough understanding of the concept of character presentation, which can contribute to its use in the contemporary rhetoric and argumentation as well. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2002 – Arguing In “Pen Of Steele And Silken Inke”: Theorizing A Broader Material Base For Argumentation

• by: Maureen Daly Goggin - Arizona State University

I’ve been a hard worker all my life, but most all my work has been the kind that ‘perishes with usin’,’ as the Bible says. That’s the discouragin’ thing about a woman’s work . . . I’ve always had the name of bein’ a good housekeeper, but when I’m dead and gone there ain’t anybody goin’ to think o’ the floors I’ve swept, and the tables I’ve scrubbed, and the old clothes I’ve patched, and the stockin’s I’ve darned. . . . But when one of my grandchildren or great-grandchildren sees one o’ these quilts, they’ll think about Aunt Jane, and, wherever I am then, I’ll know I ain’t forgotten.
Aunt Jane of Kentucky (Hall, 1908)

Writing in her journal toward the end of the nineteenth century, Aunt Jane of Kentucky claimed quilting as a rhetorical space where she could leave her mark. As Carol Mattingly (2002a) observes of nineteenth century women rhetors, “since many of the traditional tools of rhetoric were denied them, women found it necessary to consider techniques beyond masculine speakers’ attention to argument and delivery” (4)[i]. Needlework offered women, like Aunt Jane, one such rhetorical technique (Parker, 1989).
Focusing scholarly attention on non-traditional, alternative rhetorical techniques raises at least two questions: How do those who are denied access, typically by virtue of their gender, race, ethnicity, class and sexual orientation, to dominant, ma(i)n/stream discursive spaces construct and engage in arguments? How do we as scholars devise methods for theorizing and historicizing rhetorical practices that take place in the shadows or on the margins of these spaces? Over the last ten years feminist historians of rhetoric have begun to tackle complex questions along these lines as they have tilled important new scholarly ground in their efforts to recoup neglected women rhetors and rhetoricians, and previously overlooked feminist traditions (Campbell, 1989; Glenn, 1997; Hobbs, 1997; Jarratt, 1991; Logan, 1999; Lunsford, 1995; Mattingly, 1998, 2002a; Peterson, 1995; Ratcliffe, 1996; Royster, 2000; Sutherland & Sutcliffe, 1999; Wertheimer, 1997). As Patricia Bizzell (2000) points out, over the last decade “few, if any, other areas of research in the history of rhetoric have produced such rich results of this kind as feminist research” (7). Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2002 – Kinâya, A Tropic Device From Medieval Arabic Rhetoric, And Its Impact On Discourse Theory

• by: Joseph Dichy - GRIC-CNRS/Université Lumière-Lyon 2

1 Introduction
The present paper [i] will endeavour to show that Medieval Arabic Rhetorical sciences enclose a number of concepts of great interest to present-day rhetorical and argumentative studies. Medieval Arabic Rhetoric has been widely overlooked in Western studies on rhetoric and argumentation, owing, on the whole, to the fact that original Arabic treaties (ranging from the VIIIth to the XVth centuries) are extremely difficult to translate, especially when it comes to examples.
This contribution will focus on a tropic device called kinâya, which ought, in the author’s opinion, to appear as a full entry in XXIst century dictionaries of discourse analysis, rhetoric or argumentation. As will be outlined in the next section, the term has evolved between its first technical use in the VIIIth century and its ‘stabilised’ definition, due to a XIIIth century rhetorician, Ibn al-’Atîr. This evolution accounts for the need to keep kinâya in its original Arabic form rather than introduce it in translation, as English equivalents are bound to be restricted to one aspect or another of the overall notion.
Kinâya will be considered here in a historical perspective, from the beginnings of Koranic exegesis to later rhetoric treaties, which have come to define it as a device in which a word or a phrase can be taken in both what we would call figurative and literal meanings.
The author’s assumption is that the notion of kinâya is originally related to the difficulties encountered in the exegesis of biblical or Koranic verses including such phrases as “the hand of God”, which induced discussions of considerable theological impact as to whether their meaning is to be taken as literal or figurative in early Islamic thought as well as in early Medieval Jewish commentaries.
The second section of this contribution will give evidence on the argumentative use of kinâya, as a tropic device pertaining to ‘indirect wording’, running on from its original meaning in Arabic rhetoric and exegesis. Examples will illustrate what can be called rhetoric of indirect wording, and its argumentative impact.

2 A short historical view of kinâya
In Western literature on Arabic studies, kinâya is very often translated as “metonymy” (Pellat, 1986: 116) or “periphrasis” (Larkin, 1995, index; also: “descriptive periphrasis”, p. 75). Pellat goes on to state that:
“kinâya constitutes a particular type of metaphor (isti(âra) and is distinct from trope (ma(âz) in that the latter is only to be supposed if taken in its figurative sense.” (1986: 116.)
Contradictory as they may seem, these translations are at least partly true, concerning specific texts or authors. The overall notion of kinâya can only emerge from a close analysis of lexical, rhetoric and exegetic Arabic sources, considered in a historical perspective, which I will now endeavour to outline [ii].

2.1 The lexical meaning of kinâya [iii]
The noun kinâya derives from the infinitive form (ma(dar)[iv] of the verb kanâ, yaknî, the meaning of which is:
“the concealed expression (tawriya) of a denomination through [the use of ] another. One says kanaytu (an ka(â, ‘I avoided expressing something’, upon using another expression from which the first one [i.e. the one referred to by ‘something’] can be inferred.” (Ibn Fâris, ob. 1005, Maqâyîs, vol. 5: 139.)
Lexicographers also indicate that the concealing of the first expression can be due to modesty: the expression to be avoided is considered as “abominable, impudent, obscene” (yustaf(a( – Ibn Man(ûr, ob. 1311, Lisân, root k-n-y). They go on to another sense of the same verb (sometimes considered as the original meaning), to which another nominalized infinitive form, kunya, “surname”, “agnomen”, is attached. The kunya consists of ’abû (“father of”) or ’umm (“mother of”) followed by the name of the son. It is used – even nowadays – either in order to avoid uttering the actual name of someone in public (commonly, a woman’s name), or as an honorific and/or friendly term of address[v]. The kunya can also become the surname by which someone is commonly known (his (uhra). Ibn Fâris explicitly considers the surname as a meaning derived from the definition above: “Kinâya stands opposite to explicit expression (mu(âra(a). This is why the surname is called kunya (‘surname’)[vi], as if it were a concealed expression (tawriya) of someone’s name.” (Maqâyîs…, vol. 5: 139.) Read more