Argumentative Resources Research Articles

The just world hypothesis as an argumentative resource in debates about unemployment benefits

AbstractThe concept of the “just world” is established as a key explanation for how people make sense of inequality so that those deemed to score high in belief in a just world are more likely to hold prejudicial beliefs and to blame people in poverty for their situations. However, this is an inadequate explanation for such complicated and controversial issues. To better understand talk about the just world and the controversial issue of the distribution of unemployment benefits (an issue of inequality), a discursive psychological approach to the just world is used. Therefore, a discourse analysis focusses on 2 feature length British televised discussions about benefit claimants called “The Big Benefit Row: Live” (Channel 5 3/2/2014) and “Benefits Britain: the Debate” (Channel 4 17/2/2014). The analysis demonstrates that people draw on both just and unjust world arguments simultaneously and also topicalise what counts as just so as to support their positions on unemployment benefits, rather than in the consistent way that just world theory would predict. It is therefore argued that the just world should be recast as a cultural value that facilitates arguments about benefits, rather than an internally held belief.

Проблема обоснования ценностей в гуманитаристике: когнитивно-прагматический подход

The main cognitive models of the values supporting reasoning in the discourse of the humanities are identified, the typology of selected schemes is made, their modifications are characterised, the pragmatic differences of the models are determined. Particular attention is paid to the “cause to aim” justification of the value judgments that prevails in the humanities. The regularities of verbal representation of cognitive structures are ascertained, pragmatic properties of argumentative markers are explicated. The author’s typology of tactics that implements rational and emotional value-study strategies is proposed. A number of fallacies in the justification of normative value judgments are revealed, such as “semantic-pragmatic dissonance”, “simulation of reasoning”, “pseudoauthority”, “superfluity of argumentative resource”. The sources of such shortcomings are exemplified by the facts from the evidence base. The conclusion is that the author of the article chooses the cognitive model of argumentation in support of the values, the ways of its verbal presentation and the tactics of reasoning on the basis of pragmatic factors.

Transcending the evidentiary boundary: Prediction error minimization, embodied interaction, and explanatory pluralism

In a recent paper, Jakob Hohwy argues that the emerging predictive processing (PP) perspective on cognition requires us to explain cognitive functioning in purely internalistic and neurocentric terms. The purpose of the present paper is to challenge the view that PP entails a wholesale rejection of positions that are interested in the embodied, embedded, extended, or enactive dimensions of cognitive processes. I will argue that Hohwy’s argument from analogy, which forces an evidentiary boundary into the picture, lacks the argumentative resources to make a convincing case for the conceptual necessity to interpret PP in solely internalistic terms. For this reason, I will reconsider the postulation and explanatory role of the evidentiary boundary. I will arrive at an account of prediction error minimization and its foundation on the free energy principle that is fully consistent with approaches to cognition that emphasize the embodied and interactive properties of cognitive processes. This gives rise to the suggestion that explanatory pluralism about the application of PP is to be preferred over Hohwy’s explanatory monism that follows from his internalistic and neurocentric view of predictive cognitive systems.

Enunciación y argumentación: propuestas para el análisis de las formas personales como recurso argumentativo en la oralidad

As part of an investigation about strategies and resources for the construction of social representations (Raiter, 2016) on orality, we propose to articulate an analysis of linguistic forms with the argumentative dimension of utterances. The aim of this paper is to review the methodology proposed by Lavandera (1984) for the analysis of the tension between the personal and the impersonal, interpreting the use of this dimension as an argumentative resource (Ducrot, 1984). From our interdiscursive perspective, we seek to show how the characterization of the enunciative roles can facilitate analysis of the positions of enunciation from which the meaning of statements is oriented (Guimaraes, 1998). To this end, we will analyse three fragments of an interview by applying the study of the distribution of pronominal forms (Lavandera, 1984) and the argumentative chains (Ducrot, 1984). We believe that analysis as described from the perspective of discourse analysis will mean a contribution for future work on strategies for building social representations.

Rumor Communities: The Social Dimensions of Internet Political Misperceptions*

ObjectiveThis study illuminates the communicative and social qualities of naturally occurring public resistance to authoritative debunking of political misperceptions, rumors, and conspiracy theories. Developing the concept of a “rumor community,” it highlights aspects of rumoring processes overlooked by psychological approaches common in misperception research.MethodsOver 2,000 user‐generated comments from the “vaccines cause autism” rumor community, produced as the medical study that had sparked the rumor was retracted and ultimately denounced as fraudulent, are examined for their contribution to the public conversation about vaccine safety.ResultsRumor community members publicly counterargue debunking messages, which creates a communication environment offering argumentative resources to community members and reaffirming the community's solidarity. Members assert their credibility to gain authority to speak, countering science with personal experience. Highlighting their interconnection with more conventional social groups and venerable social truisms, members generate discourse that legitimates their beliefs.ConclusionsThe process of rumor debunking does not solely involve psychological persuasion but must also account for the social geography of rumor communities and their contributions to the communication environment.

Constructing the vicarious experience of proximity in a Marcellus Shale public hearing

ABSTRACTThis paper examines citizen testimony in a public hearing held within the Marcellus Shale region, USA. By focusing on the role of place as an argumentative resource, this analysis reveals an appeal common to both sides of the issue where hearing participants use their knowledge of a place to provide the audience with the vicarious experience of being in that place. Such scene-making not only provides credibility to average citizens, it is also used to negotiate the communal meaning of place. In this negotiation, fracking supporters are found to be less descriptive and provide an “aerial view” of the places they thematize while fracking opponents represent scenes more closely from an “on-the-ground” perspective with a high level of detail. This difference affects how audience members are invited to engage with these scenes, which may impact the acceptance and circulation of these arguments as well as the way people experience the place they live.

Guest Editor's Introduction

Guest Editor's Introduction

Constructions of ‘Illegal’ Immigration and Entitlement to Citizenship: Debating an Immigration Law in Greece

AbstractThis study explores the ways in which constructions of immigrants' illegality and accounts on the meaning of naturalization and citizenship serve as argumentative resources against a particular immigration law in Greece. Data consisted of transcripts of parliamentary speeches by political party leaders who opposed the law. Analysis used the tools and concepts of discursive and rhetorical social psychology and identified three main lines of arguing. The first set clear boundaries between ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ immigration and constructed immigrants' (il)legal entry as a category defining criterion. The second represented legal status as subject to change and constructed immigrants as ‘legalized’, in order to argue against their entitlement to citizenship. Finally, in another sort of accounting, regularization and naturalization procedures were trivialized, as the speakers negotiated the necessary, and also the ideal conditions of co‐existence and participation in a nation–state. The findings are discussed in relation to their potential contribution (i) to the existing literature on the constituted and constitutive nature of the category of illegal immigration and (ii) to a social psychological approach to citizenship. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The ‘child’s best interests’ as an argumentative resource in family mediation sessions

We used Discursive Psychology to study the claims and arguments which occur when ‘the child’s best interests’ is produced as a resource in family mediation settings. Analysis draws on data from three pairs of separated or separating parents attempting to resolve child contact or residency disputes through mediation. Our analysis focuses on the tendency of claims to the abstract notion of the child’s best interests to exacerbate conflict, especially as parents drew on conflicting research in this area. Changing expectations of fathering could be observed in the men’s argumentative positioning, and this was taken up in different ways by ex-partners and by mediators. Participants aligned themselves with mediators’ statements by picking up details of mediators’ language, hampering mediators’ attempted neutrality. The problematic nature of acknowledging the intensity of emotions in this process was also highlighted.

Participation of non-dominant students in argumentation in the mathematics classroom

This article focuses on argumentation in mathematics classrooms in two different geographic contexts, the US and New Zealand. Drawing on data from a case with immigrant students (Pāsifika) in NZ and a case with Mexican American students in the US, we argue for the need to study the concept of argumentation through a cultural and language lens. Our analysis across the two cases points to common features that supported students’ engagement in argumentation. Building relationships and encouraging and supporting students to be themselves are seen as resources for argumentation. The similarities across two very different contexts are striking. As we think of how to develop environments that support non-dominant students’ participation in mathematical argumentation, we may want to learn from and build on students’ cultural ways of being.

Visual Fragments and the Politics of Place: Feminist Advocacy in Czech Public Culture

This article analyzes how Forum 50%'s visual “argumentative fragments” respond to and make visible the gendered norms of Czech political culture and advocate for women's increased levels of participation, representation, and legitimacy. Forum 50%'s visual rhetoric provides a compelling case to assess the argumentative resources of image events, the politics of place, and the role of humor for feminist work in the public sphere and on the public screen. Through an examination of Forum 50%'s visual strategies, this article demonstrates the importance of orchestrating a visible public image that commands political agency and dismantles gendered stereotypes while taking advantage of the rhetorical resources within a specific cultural context and place. Forum 50%'s campaign expands our understanding of gender and social protest, demonstrates the extent to which women can work toward political equality in a post-Communist environment, and explores the potential for visual argument to spark social change.

Urban policy mobilities, argumentation and the case of the model city

In recent years urban geographers have devoted considerable attention to the dynamics of policy mobility. After reviewing the progress achieved in this literature, in this article I offer two distinctive contributions. First, I draw on the “argumentative turn” in policy studies and related fields in order to develop an alternative conceptualization of urban policy mobility that pays greater attention to its discursive and argumentative aspects. I thus reassert the significance of democratic processes in the negotiation of urban policy. Second, I outline an alternative methodology for the study of urban policy mobility, focusing on the analysis of argumentation. I apply this methodology to historical instances of urban policy mobilities arising from a recent research project that aimed to historicize the phenomenon of the “model city,” defined as the local deployment of another city’s experience as an argumentative resource supporting particular policy claims.

Education and media: contemporary implications in the academic routine

Digital technology development and interactive networks have undoubtedly reshaped the profile of subject matter in this century, creating demands and substantially redefining teaching and students' work in the use of media resources. This article identifies the assumptions of contemporary information and communication technologies and their didactic and pedagogical implications starting from mythological characters as argumentative resources, and discusses reductionist views that encompass issues related to education and technology. The purpose is to contribute to education in nursing, providing conceptual positions for the application of these technologies, with a critical evaluation of convergences and divergences.

El argumento de probabilidad (τὸ εἰκός) en la retórica griega

Los discursos de oradores como Isócrates, Gorgias, Antifonte, Lisias, entre otros, e igualmente, los dos tratados de retórica que conservamos de la segunda mitad del siglo IV a. C no solo pueden considerarse como piezas literarias construidas con gran habilidad o como manuales con recetas para aplicar sino como fuente de conceptos de interés para la filosofía. En este artículo analizaremos uno de esos conceptos, τὸ εἰκός. Traducido normalmente como “probable” o “verosímil”, los eikóta son recursos argumentativos utilizados desde los orígenes de la práctica de arte retórico, sobre todo en espacios judiciales y, particularmente, fueron usados en aquellos litigios en donde la falta de testigos o testimonios hacía difícil inclinar favorablemente al juez. Pero también los eikóta ocuparon el centro de la crítica platónica al ser definidos como opuestos a la verdad (ἀλήθεια).

Sense-making in financial communication: Semiotic vectors and iconographic strategies in banking advertising

The paper analyzes the cognitive, affective and persuasive role of visual metaphors in financial advertising discourse. In the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, the restoration of trust-based relationships has become a prime marketing objective. In particular, the crisis-fraught retail banks have adapted their communication strategies to signal profound institutional transformations in response to trust depletion and public image impairment.The methodological approach is based on the semio-narrative analysis of encoding tools that correlate with specific communicational objectives. Special emphasis is placed on the transformative articulation from risk-prone to risk-averse institutional discourse by correlating risk factors with rhetorical strategies. Cultural inferences represent significant argumentative resources and are explored as strategic devices in discourse organization. The paper further examines the critical role of image/text inter-textuality as an enhancer of persuasive relevance.Empirically grounded in pre-crisis and post-crisis advertising campaigns at Société Générale, the in-depth visual discourse analysis shows how the strategic use of discursive resources, both visual and verbal, impacts identity construct and collective sense-making. The resulting paradigm of visual signs establishes a semiotic frame for subsequent survey studies to measure communicational effectiveness.

METÁFORA Y ANALOGÍA EN ARISTÓTELES

El uso y límites de la analogía y la metáfora en la ciencia aristotélica pueden ser confusos. En algunos pasajes, Aristóteles usa ambos elementos en las explicaciones y defiende su claridad. Sin embargo, en otros textos la metáfora es excluida de la ciencia. En este artículo, analizaré las diferencias entre metáfora y analogía y examinaré en qué contexto se pude utilizar la metáfora. Mi tesis es que Aristóteles usa la analogía como una estrategia argumentativa captada por epagogé. En el caso de las metáforas, éstas deben ser excluidas de la ciencia, aunque son una estrategia válida para cierto tipo de discursos y como elementos pedagógicos en las explicaciones.

The Normative Impact of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on Latin-American National Prosecution of Mass Atrocities

Throughout its history, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has ruled in a significant number of cases on the state's obligations to investigate and prosecute grave human rights violations and international crimes. Regardless of the existence of this body of international jurisprudence, an important question remains unanswered: Can the Inter-American Court's decisions have any significant normative impact on national jurisdictions when it comes to the prosecution of international crimes? This article argues that such an impact is possible provided that the national courts have a specific judicial identity, better associated with the idea of neo-constitutionalism. In this context, international law and regional human rights jurisprudence becomes a relevant argumentative resource, which can be incorporated into judicial decisions in order to ensure the effective prosecution of gross human rights violations and international crimes.

Latent but Not Less Significant: The Holocaust as an Argumentative Resource in German National Identity Discourse

There seems to be a wide consensus in the academic community that the Holocaust is gradually losing significance in the German public. This development is clearly reflected in public elite discourse on national identity, where “Holocaust-centered memory” has ceased to be hegemonic. In the literature, several interpretations and reasons have been presented to explain this development. This paper contributes to the debate by arguing that the declining presence of Holocaust-centered arguments in intellectual elite discourse on national identity is due to a new consensual idea of German nationhood. Based on an event-oriented discourse analysis of more than 800 articles in opinion-leading newspapers, journals and magazines covering a period of more than twenty years, I argue that in national identity discourse, the Holocaust has never been—as is usually assumed—a blockade to displays of national identity in general, but only to a specific interpretation of the German nation as a Volk and as an exclusionist culture nation. By contrast, the idea of nationhood that dominates in the German public sphere today, the civic nation model, has never invoked Holocaust-centered counter-arguments—not even in the Historikerstreit in the 1980s. Thus, over the past three decades, the way national identity discourse has operated might have changed less than had often been assumed. The central argument of this paper is that the Holocaust has become a “latent”—but not a less consequential—argumentative resource.

The Relationships Between Modelling and Argumentation from the Perspective of the Model of Modelling Diagram

Some studies related to the nature of scientific knowledge demonstrate that modelling is an inherently argumentative process. This study aims at discussing the relationship between modelling and argumentation by analysing data collected during the modelling-based teaching of ionic bonding and intermolecular interactions. The teaching activities were planned from the transposition of the main modelling stages that constitute the ‘Model of Modelling Diagram’ so that students could experience each of such stages. All the lessons were video recorded and their transcriptions supported the elaboration of case studies for each group of students. From the analysis of the case studies, we identified argumentative situations when students performed all of the modelling stages. Our data show that the argumentative situations were related to sense making, articulating and persuasion purposes, and were closely related to the generation of explanations in the modelling processes. They also show that representations are important resources for argumentation. Our results are consistent with some of those already reported in the literature regarding the relationship between modelling and argumentation, but are also divergent when they show that argumentation is not only related to the model evaluation phase.

Essentialism, historical construction, and social influence: Representations of Pomakness in majority talk in Western Thrace (Greece)

Social psychological research has been particularly interested to study essentialism in the construction of social categories and to manifest its potential consequences in intergroup attitudes. Drawing upon this literature, the present study focuses on the argumentative resources employed to construct ethnic categories in a specific rhetorical context: focus group discussions between majority Greek educators about the minority group of Pomaks, historically residing in Western Thrace (Greece). Discussions were framed as an attempt to capture the particularities of minority education and data were analysed by the use of tools and concepts of discursive and rhetorical psychology. Analysis indicates that participants have multiple and complex recourses available to construct Pomakness. Representations of Pomakness as an essential a-historical entity coexist with conceptions of category membership and identification as a result of certain historical conditions and processes of social influence. Essential and de-essential category constructions are approached as rhetorically situated, oriented towards specific rhetorical ends in specific argumentative contexts. They are also considered, however, to be nested within a complex and dynamic intergroup context which reflects the ideological contradictions of the Greek policy towards the minority and which constitutes (but it is also reconstituted by) shifting group definitions and boundaries.