The Contextuality of Fallacies

Van Eemeren and Houtlosser observe that Walton’s (and Walton and Krabbe’s) notion of ‘dialogue type’ involves a mixture of an empirical notion on a par with a speech event or activity type and a normative notion such as the model of a critical discussion. Then they discuss Walton’s contextual analysis of fallacies as illegitimate dialectical shifts of dialogue types and offer an alternative in which both the empirical and the normative dimension are given their due.

Download Full-text

Strategic maneuvering with presentational choices in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports

Journal of Argumentation in Context ◽

10.1075/jaic.6.2.02gat ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 6 (2) ◽

pp. 137-166

Author(s):

Anca Gâţă

Keyword(s):

Corporate Social Responsibility ◽

Social Responsibility ◽

Critical Discussion ◽

Strategic Maneuvering ◽

Activity Type ◽

Csr Reporting ◽

Dialectical Theory ◽

Communicative Activity Type ◽

Corporate Social ◽

Communicative Activity

Abstract In the framework of the extended pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting is approached in this study as a particular communicative activity type, which can be reconstructed as part of a critical discussion. CSR reports excerpts are viewed in the analysis as parts of a virtual critical discussion in which a company acts as a protagonist maneuvering strategically to defend the standpoint according to which the business is operated ethically, and to convince the audience about what is mentioned in the standpoint. The reconstructed standpoint of a CSR report, We are doing business responsibly, may be regarded as stereotypical, since it corresponds to the institutional point of this regulated type of communicative activity. In the first part of the study, a brief overview is given of the CSR reporting activity, then the concept of strategic maneuvering is presented, under its three aspects (topical potential, audience demand, and presentational techniques), as well as the notion of communicative activity type, with a highlight on the role of the (macro-)context and of institutional preconditions in analytical studies on argumentation. The analysis in the latter part of the study concerns presentational techniques used by the protagonist in the confrontation and in the argumentation stages in CSR reporting, in order to reconcile rhetorical and dialectical aims by maneuvering strategically. The coordinatively and the subordinatively compound structure of argumentation, the symptomatic argument scheme, as well as reformulations of the standpoint, use of emotionally endowed words, concentration of the arguments in the form of nominal sentences acting as headings are among the most important presentational devices constitutive of argumentative moves aimed at convincing the audience that the company acts ethically, but also at promoting a positive image of its business responsibility, which appears to be the ground for winning the discussion.

Download Full-text

Collaborative oral narratives of general experience: when an interview becomes a conversation

Language and Literature ◽

10.1177/0963947003012002297 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 153-174 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Marina Lambrou

Keyword(s):

Personal Experience ◽

Peer Group ◽

Personal Narratives ◽

Oral Narratives ◽

Activity Type ◽

Speech Event ◽

Greek Cypriot ◽

Speech Genre ◽

General Experience ◽

Social Act

This article explores the shift in speech genre from a peer group interview speech event to an activity type with interactive features resembling a casual conversation and the consequent effects on the narrator, interviewees and process of story-telling. It reports on sociolinguistic interviews in which collection of oral narratives of personal experience among members of the Greek Cypriot community in London becomes collaborative and facilitates the co-production of spoken personal narratives (hence the ‘general experience’ of the title). The highly social act of narrating sees the emergence of explicit and implicit collaborative strategies, specifically the use of prompts and requests for clarification, which appear to be an inevitable outcome of narrating in a setting where the audience is wider than just the interviewer.

Download Full-text

Engineering argumentation in marriage

Journal of Argumentation in Context ◽

10.1075/jaic.2.3.01weg ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 2 (3) ◽

pp. 279-298 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Keyword(s):

Conflict Management ◽

Critical Discussion ◽

Strategic Maneuvering ◽

Activity Type ◽

Management Procedure ◽

Rational Decisions

Understanding argumentation in marriage as a design enterprise focuses researchers’ efforts in understanding how such arguments can go wrong and helps to identify designs that might help reduce unproductive conflict. Given the importance many marriage experts place on successful conflict management, designing procedures that help couples resolve their differences can potentially reduce the negative personal and societal results of failed marriages. In this paper I analyze the Fair Fight for Change (FFFC) conflict management procedure as a strategic maneuvering activity type. The purpose of this analysis is to examine the adequacy of the procedure itself in helping couples produce rational decisions about marital disagreements balanced by strategic maneuvers aimed to maintain the identity and relationship needs of the participants. Specifically, I recommend a redesign of the FFFC that incorporates a simplified version of the critical discussion rules to help guide couples as they attempt to resolve their differences.

Download Full-text

Argumentation in Nigerian investigative public hearings

Journal of Argumentation in Context ◽

10.1075/jaic.19004.ola ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 9 (2) ◽

pp. 199-218

Author(s):

Foluke Olayinka Unuabonah

Keyword(s):

Information Seeking ◽

Critical Discussion ◽

Public Hearing ◽

Argumentation Schemes ◽

Activity Type ◽

Argumentative Discourse ◽

Public Hearings ◽

Communicative Activity Type ◽

Causal Argumentation ◽

Communicative Activity

Abstract This paper examines defendants’ argumentative discourse in the 2008 Nigerian investigative public hearings on the Federal Capital Territory administration. The data, which consist of nine defendants’ presentations, are analyzed qualitatively, using a combination of the pragma-dialectical and extended pragma-dialectical theories of argumentation. The findings show that the hearing panel initially starts of as the institutional protagonist and defendants as the antagonists, and but later serve as the institutional antagonist and protagonists, respectively. The defendants tend to use analogy and causal argumentation schemes while employing subordinative and complementary coordinative argumentation structures. The defendants also employ different strategic maneuvers at different argumentative stages of the critical discussion. Due to the politico-forensic communicative domain and information-seeking genre of the investigative public hearing discourse, the concluding stage is suspended. Thus, the study shows the influence of communicative activity type on the argumentative activities in a critical discussion.

Download Full-text

Experiences With and Lessons Learned From Developing, Implementing, and Evaluating a Support Program for Older Hearing Aid Users and Their Communication Partners in the Hearing Aid Dispensing Setting

American Journal of Audiology ◽

10.1044/2020_aja-19-00072 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 29 (3S) ◽

pp. 638-647 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Janine F. J. Meijerink ◽

Marieke Pronk ◽

Sophia E. Kramer

Keyword(s):

Large Scale ◽

Hearing Aid ◽

Critical Discussion ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

Research Note ◽

Support Program ◽

Large Sample Size ◽

Long Term Effects ◽

Communication Program ◽

Communication Partners

Purpose The SUpport PRogram (SUPR) study was carried out in the context of a private academic partnership and is the first study to evaluate the long-term effects of a communication program (SUPR) for older hearing aid users and their communication partners on a large scale in a hearing aid dispensing setting. The purpose of this research note is to reflect on the lessons that we learned during the different development, implementation, and evaluation phases of the SUPR project. Procedure This research note describes the procedures that were followed during the different phases of the SUPR project and provides a critical discussion to describe the strengths and weaknesses of the approach taken. Conclusion This research note might provide researchers and intervention developers with useful insights as to how aural rehabilitation interventions, such as the SUPR, can be developed by incorporating the needs of the different stakeholders, evaluated by using a robust research design (including a large sample size and a longer term follow-up assessment), and implemented widely by collaborating with a private partner (hearing aid dispensing practice chain).

Download Full-text

Supplemental Material for Longitudinal Associations Between Activity and Cognition Vary by Age, Activity Type, and Cognitive Domain

Psychology and Aging ◽

10.1037/a0036960.supp ◽

2014 ◽

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Domain ◽

Activity Type ◽

Longitudinal Associations

Download Full-text

Marx and the “law of value”: Critical appraisal on the occasion of his 200th birth anniversary

Voprosy Ekonomiki ◽

10.32609/0042-8736-2018-11-27-49 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 27-49 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

H. D. Kurz

Keyword(s):

Karl Marx ◽

Critical Appraisal ◽

Critical Discussion ◽

Use Value ◽

Transformation Problem ◽

The Common ◽

The Law

The paper celebrates Karl Marx’ 200th birthday in terms of a critical discussion of the “law of value” and the idea that “abstract labour”, and not any use value, is the common third of any two commodities that exchange for one another in a given proportion. It is argued that this view is difficult to sustain. It is also the source of the wretched and unnecessary “transformation problem”. Ironically, as Piero Sraffa has shown, prices of production and the general rate of profits are fully determined in terms of the same set of data from which Marx started his analysis.

Download Full-text