Abstract

Argument schemes are abstractions substantiating the inferential connection between premise(s) and conclusion in argumentative communication. Identifying such conventional patterns of reasoning is essential to the interpretation and evaluation of argumentation. Whether studying argumentation from a theory-driven or data-driven perspective, insight into the actual use of argumentation in communicative practice is essential. Large and reliably annotated corpora of argumentative discourse to quantitatively provide such insight are few and far between. This is all the more true for argument scheme corpora, which tend to suffer from a combination of limited size, poor validation, and the use of ad hoc restricted typologies. In the current paper, we describe the annotation of schemes on the basis of two distinct classifications: Walton’s taxonomy of argument schemes, and Wagemans’ Periodic Table of Arguments. We describe the annotation procedure for each, and the quantitative characteristics of the resulting annotated text corpora. In doing so, we extend the annotation of the preexisting US2016 corpus of televised election debates, resulting in, to the best of our knowledge, the two largest consistently annotated corpora of schemes in argumentative dialogue publicly available. Based on evaluation in terms of inter-annotator agreement, we propose further improvements to the guidelines for annotating schemes: the argument scheme key, and the Argument Type Identification Procedure.

Highlights

  • Theory-driven and data-driven studies of argumentation alike rely on data about the actual use of argumentation in communicative practice—to test top-down theorising, or found a bottom-up empirical approach

  • We address the annotation of text corpora with argument schemes

  • Adopting a corpus-linguistic approach to argument schemes, we introduce, apply, and revise practical guidelines for the annotation of corpora of real-world argumentative data

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Summary

Introduction

Theory-driven and data-driven studies of argumentation alike rely on data about the actual use of argumentation in communicative practice—to test top-down theorising, or found a bottom-up empirical approach This data can come from the qualitative appraisal of selected examples, or from quantitative approaches. We do not wish to evaluate the appropriateness or correctness of any theory—whether Walton’s or Wagemans’ or any alternative Like many alternatives, both approaches have their place and value within scholarly traditions and for various applications: Walton’s taxonomy has found wide uptake in the study of argumentation (within both traditional and computational approaches), while Wagemans’ decompositional approach is applied in formal linguistics and yields possible advantages for automation and explication—and other alternatives have their own advantages and disadvantages

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