A Pragma-Dialectical Study of Pragmatic Argumentation in Academic Argument

Abstract

Academic argumentation refers to a concrete form of theoretical thinking embodied in academic works. It is a process of exposition of scientific materials to illustrate academic issues and proves that academic opinions have a true value. Academic argumentation is also an inference method and form exploited by countless preconditions to withdraw conclusions. In academic papers, authors are likely to use practical arguments to convince their target audiences by highlighting the positive or negative results that a particular standpoint has. Current research on pragmatic argumentation in institutional contexts mainly concentrates on the legal and political domains. Few researchers pay enough attention to pragmatic argumentation used in academic argument, let alone formulate proper soundness criteria for evaluating its reasonableness. Given all this, within the framework of Pragma-dialectics, this paper analyzes and evaluates the pragmatic argumentation typically used in the paper How Applied Linguistics is the same as other science in the Applied Linguistics. The general goal of this research is to reveal how pragmatic argumentation is used in academic argument. Based on the institutional preconditions of academic argument and the general pragma-dialectical soundness criteria for pragmatic argumentation, this study puts forward specific criteria for evaluating pragmatic argumentation in case of academic argument. This paper aims to evaluate the use of pragmatic argumentation in How Applied Linguistics is the same as other science and finds that academic argument may sometimes fail to keep the balance between reasonableness and effectiveness and consequently commits derailed fallacies, when they overwhelmingly pursue the persuasive effects of pragmatic argumentation and its extensions. This research is of both theoretical and practical significance. In theory, this study develops a pragma-dialectical research framework for academic argument, thus expanding the research perspectives and methods of academic argument. Meanwhile, the scope of institutional contexts of Pragma-dialectics is extended by studying academic argument. In practice, this study enlightens academic researchers who are responsible for international communication on how to use pragmatic argumentation both reasonably and effectively. More importantly, it provides a crucial analytic tool for readers to interpret academic argument appropriately and improve their critical thinking abilities.