Advancing critical discourse analysis of Indigenous consultations: Argument Continuity v. epistemic vigilance

Abstract

ABSTRACT The paper conducts the critical discourse analysis of Indigenous consultation reports with the help of Argument Continuity, a brand-new critical discourse analysis category. Argument Continuity is a set of the same arguments and counterarguments repeatedly produced/reproduced by the institutionally dominant arguer through an adversarial reasoning process to dismiss opposing arguments without reflecting upon their merits. Argument Continuity is contingent upon motivated criticism, a reasoning practice of biased evaluation of opposing arguments. Epistemic vigilance is a polar reasoning practice of unbiased evaluation of opposing arguments that never results in responding to them with Argument Continuity. The paper applies an institutionalist perspective to tracing and explaining the reasoning dynamics of motivated criticism and epistemic vigilance in the distorted (controlled) context of reasoning interactivity between arguers with power asymmetries. Contrasting the Indigenous consultations over the Trans Mountain and Mackenzie Valley pipelines, the paper reveals how the institutional context constraining/advancing the reasoning capacity of Indigenous arguers to resist the controversial project made it easier/harder for the institutionally dominant officials to employ motivated criticism/epistemic vigilance, responding to Indigenous concerns with or without Argument Continuities.