Argumentation
Argumentation refers to the process of presenting and defending a position or viewpoint through logical reasoning and evidence. In the context of languages and linguistics, argumentation involves analyzing and constructing persuasive arguments related to language use, structure, and meaning. It encompasses the study of rhetoric, persuasion, and the effective communication of ideas within the field of linguistics.
4 Key excerpts on "Argumentation"
eBook - ePubAnalyzing Text and Discourse
Eight Approaches for the Social Sciences
- Kristina Boréus, Göran Bergström(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications Ltd(Publisher)
...3 Argumentation Analysis Kristina Boréus 3.1 Background When I take the commuter train to work, advertisements try to persuade me that I need a new mobile phone deal by telling me how much money I could save. At the university my colleagues I and write academic articles in which we try to convince other academics that our results are interesting and sound. In politics not only political parties but also think tanks, lobby groups and NGOs strive to make people see society in particular ways and therefore support certain policies rather than others. Persuasion is an important part of social communication and a crucial aspect of trying to persuade is by arguing. Therefore social scientists need tools to both describe and evaluate Argumentation. This chapter will provide such tools. 3.1.1 Rhetoric and Argumentation analysis Rhetoric, the study of persuasion, was developed by Greek and Roman scholars during antiquity. Rhetoric takes a broad grip on attempts to persuade by speech or writing in particular situations and can be defined as the “systematic study and intentional practice of effective symbolic expression” (Herrick, 2013: 8). The three central concepts of rhetoric are logos, ethos and pathos. Logos is the part of the attempt to persuade that appeals to the rational capacities of the audience or readership. Argumentative texts in which logos dominates appear factual and contain few evaluative words and expressions. Ethos might be defined as the character or personality that a speaker wants to ascribe to themselves in order to win the interest and confidence of the audience. If ethos is pronounced in texts, the speaker or writer appears strongly present. Pathos is the aspect of strong feelings and passions that a speaker or writer tries to awaken. A text with a strong pathos appears passionate and uses many evaluative expressions. Argumentation analysis is a development of rhetoric that focuses on logos rather than ethos or pathos...
eBook - ePubArgumentation
Analysis and Evaluation
- Frans H. van Eemeren, A. Francisca Sn Henkemans(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...They are very dedicated. 3.4 Additional Means of Identifying Argumentation If the linguistic context is not well defined and provides no clues, other aids must be used to identify the arguments. It is in the interest of a person trying to resolve a difference of opinion that the listener or reader be able to interpret the Argumentation correctly. It can therefore be assumed that it is the arguer’s intention to make the arguments recognizable as such. If the arguer’s arguments are not clear from the surrounding verbal context, then they may become clear if other dimensions of context are taken into account: the “situational,” the “institutional,” and the “intertextual” dimensions. The situational context in which an utterance is made that is hard to interpret can be helpful in coming to the right interpretation by providing information about what exactly was happening when the utterance occurred. Take the following example: The meeting hasn’t started yet. Martin is the chairman. [When this is being said, one sees Martin coming down the hallway.] In this example, the speaker asserts that the meeting has not yet started. Without knowing that Martin, who will be chairing the meeting, is coming down the hallway, one would not understand that the statement that Martin is the chairman is a justification of the claim that the meeting has not started yet. The institutional context of the communicative domain in which the problematic utterance was made can be helpful in interpreting problematic utterances in argumentative discourse by specifying the conventional layout of the type of discourse concerned, so that it may become clear which interpretation would be appropriate. The conventional design of a certain type of discourse may legitimize a specific interpretation...
eBook - ePub- George E. Newell, David Bloome, Alan Hirvela(Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Much, although not all, of the scholarship on argumentative writing has treated Argumentation as if there were a relatively consistent set of cognitive and linguistic skills and processes that define an effective argument regardless of variation in contexts. Although there has been recognition that there may be different ways of engaging in argument (Berrill, 1996; van Eemeren, Grootendorst, & Henke-mans, 2002), different ways of teaching argumentative writing (Ramage et al., 2007; Toulmin, Rieke, & Janik, 1979), and different kinds of argument text schemes (Walton, 1999), to date there has been little attention to viewing argumentative writing as a set of social practices that vary across and within social institutions, social settings, and social situations. In our view, the teaching of argumentative writing involves not only a concern for effectively teaching a written genre, acquiring argument schema, and specific tactics and strategies, but learning how to engage in the social practices associated with the academic domain of the language arts and literature. These social practices—particular ways of using spoken and written language and other semi-otic systems within particular social situations 4 —involve ways of reasoning, sharing ideas, expressing opinions, exploring perspectives, inquiring into the human condition, constructing texts, generating insights, establishing social relationships, expressing social identities, and using spoken and written language. These practices are essentially social in at least two ways...
eBook - ePubRhetorical Argumentation
Principles of Theory and Practice
- Christopher W. Tindale(Author)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications, Inc(Publisher)
...The emergence of argument as logical proof alone is far from an adequate account of the richness of Argumentation as it was beginning to be practiced, and is more a reflection of a retrospective imposition, much like that which Schiappa identifies in the case of rhetoric. For looking at the origins of argument has also led us, unavoidably, to look deeply into the similar appearance of rhetoric as a subject and tool of interest to practitioners of discourse. As much as we could tell a fuller story about argument as dialectic and argument as logic, what has been important for the early stages of this study is to tell a full and suggestive story of argument as rhetoric, and some of the different ways even that single type might be conceived. NOTES 1. See also Cole (1991) and Johnstone (1996). 2. A May 1989 search of the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG), a computer-based data bank of all available Greek texts, confirmed Schiappa’s hypothesis that the Gorgias contained the earliest instance of rhētorikē (see Schiappa 1991, 207–213). 3. Consider also Quintilian’s discussions of the definition of “rhetoric” in his Institutio (2.15.32). Those who approach rhetoric as a techne only are inclined to view it as a means to achieve victory, and therefore see argument as eristic. Quintilian proposes more constructive goals, particularly the achievement of a practical wisdom together with the skill to declaim (2.15.38). 4. This is not such a surprising result regarding rhetoric when one considers the similar suggestion from Kerferd (1981) that it was effectively Plato who invented the “Sophists.” 5. Aristotle’s rhetorical enthymeme is discussed in more detail in Tindale 1999a, 8–12. 6. The next chapter will take up some of the argumentative strategies that might fairly be attributed to the historical Socrates. 7. See Vlastos (1991) for a detailed discussion and defense of this distinction, particularly as it emerges in the Meno...
