In this book two of the leading figures in argumentation theory present a view of argumentation as a means of resolving differences of opinion by testing the acceptability of the disputed positions. ...Their model of a 'critical discussion' serves as a theoretical tool for analysing, evaluating and producing argumentative discourse. They develop a method for the reconstruction of argumentative discourse that takes into account all aspects that are relevant to a critical assessment. They also propose a practical code of behaviour for discussants who want to resolve their differences in a reasonable way. This is a major contribution to the study of argumentation and will be of particular value to professionals and graduate students in speech communication, informal logic, rhetoric, critical thinking, linguistics, and philosophy.
In Strategic Maneuvering in Argumentative Discourse, Frans H. van Eemeren brings together the dialectical and the rhetorical dimensions of argumentation by introducing the concept of strategic ...maneuvering. Strategic maneuvering refers to the arguer's continual efforts to reconcile aiming for effectiveness with being reasonable. It takes place in all stages of argumentative discourse and manifests itself simultaneously in the choices that are made from the topical potential available at a particular stage, in adaptation to audience demand, and in the use of specific presentational devices. Strategic maneuvering derails when in the specific context in which the discourse takes place a rule for critical discussion has been violated, so that a fallacy has been committed. Van Eemeren makes clear that extending the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation by taking account of strategic maneuvering leads to a richer and more precise method for analyzing and evaluating argumentative discourse.
Argumentation in Actual Practice contains a collection of topical studies about argumentative discourse in context written by argumentation scholars from a diversity of academic backgrounds.
Argumentation between Doctors and Patients discusses the use of argumentation in clinical settings. Starting from the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation, it aims at providing an understanding ...of argumentative discourse in the context of doctor-patient interaction.
Examining Argumentation in Context: Fifteen studies on strategic maneuvering contains a selection of papers on strategic maneuvering in argumentative discourse. Starting point of all of these ...contributions is that a satisfactory analysis and evaluation of strategic maneuvering is possible only if the argumentative discourse is first situated in the communicative and interactional context in which it occurs. While some of the contributions present general views with regard to strategic maneuvering, other contributions report on the results of empirical studies, examine strategic maneuvering in a particular legal or political context, or highlight the presentational design of strategic maneuvering. Examining Argumentation in Context therefore provides an insightful view of recent developments in the research on strategic maneuvering, which is currently prominent in the study of argumentation.
Contextualizing Pragma-Dialectics contains a selection of 18 articles which report on research conducted in the past decade in which the institutional context in which argumentative discourse takes ...place is systematically taken into account. Some articles provide relevant theoretical backgrounds, other articles make clear how the extended pragma-dialectical theory can be used to analyse and evaluate argumentative discourse in specific institutional contexts. Next to argumentative discourse in the legal domain and the medical context of health communication, a great deal of attention is paid to various argumentative practices in the political domain or dealing with specific social issues. A contribution on multimodal argumentation is also included. All contributing authors are actively engaged in the International Learned Institute for Argumentation Studies (ILIAS).
By exploring the relationship between argumentative discourse and the institutional context, Frans van Eemeren, Bart Garssen, Corina Andone, Eveline Feteris and Francisca Snoeck Henkemans have ...provided a new and illuminating perspective on the context-dependency of argumentative discourse.
The introduction of the concept of strategic maneuvering into the pragma-dialectical theory makes it possible to formulate testable hypotheses regarding the persuasiveness of argumentative moves that ...are made in argumentative discourse. After summarizing the standard pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation, van Eemeren, Garssen, and Meuffels explain what the extension of the pragma-dialectical approach with strategic maneuvering involves and discuss the fallacies in terms of the extended pragma-dialectical approach as derailments of strategic maneuvering. Then they give an empirical interpretation of the extended pragma-dialectical model in which they report the testing of three hypotheses which formulate preliminary conditions for effectiveness research within the framework of the extended pragma-dialectical theory and the results of the tests they consecutively carried out.
According to van Eemeren, argumentation theory is a hybrid discipline, because it requires a multidisciplinary, if not interdisciplinary approach, combining descriptive and normative insights. He ...points out that modern argumentation theorists give substance to the discipline by relying either on a dialectical perspective, concentrating on the reasonableness of argumentation, or on a rhetorical perspective, concentrating on its effectiveness. Both the dialectical and the rhetorical perspective are interpreted in ways related to how they were viewed by Aristotle, but in modern argumentation theory the relationship between the two, captured in Aristotle’s term
antistrophos
, is lost. According to van Eemeren, this relationship, which he considers crucial to a full-fledged argumentation theory, has been recovered in extended pragma-dialectics with the help of the theoretical notion of ‘strategic manoeuvring.’
To illustrate the development of argumentation theory, the paper traces the journey of the pragma-dialectical theory as it widened its scope, step by step, from an abstract model of critical ...discussion to the complexities of actual argumentative discourse. It describes how, having contextualized, empiricalized and formalized their approach, pragma-dialecticians are now putting the theory’s analytical instruments to good use in identifying prototypical argumentative patterns in specific communicative activity types in the various communicative domains. This means that they can now start answering the crucial question about the typical characteristics of their discourse asked by interested lawyers, politicians, academics and other practitioners of argumentation.
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