Theoretical Construction and Argumentative Reality: An Analytic Model of Critical Discussion and Conventionalised Types of Argumentative Activity

Van Eemeren and Houtlosser concentrate on the tension inherent in argumentative discourse between the pursuit of success and the maintenance of reasonableness. They elaborate on their earlier claim that this tension leads to ‘strategic manoeuvring’ that can be explained by making use of insights from dialectic and rhetoric. As a new step in their treatment of strategic manoeuvring they take account of the fact that the manoeuvring always takes place in one of the various argumentative ‘activity types’ that can be distinguished in argumentative practice. Unlike theoretical constructs such as a critical discussion and other ideal models, which are based on analytic considerations regarding the most pertinent presentation of the constitutive parts of a problem-valid procedure for carrying out a particular kind of discursive task, the activity types and their associated speech events are cultural artefacts that can be identified on the basis of careful empirical observation of argumentative practice. By concentrating on three conventionalised activity types that are more or less institutionalised, van Eemeren and Houtlosser show how strategic manoeuvring is affected by the opportunities and constraints of the activity type in which it takes place

Dialectical Profiles and Indicators of Argumentative Moves

In this paper the authors give a brief overview of the theoretical background of their research project “Linguistic indicators of argumentative moves.” Starting from the pragma-dialectical ideal model of a critical discussion, they design dialectical profiles for capturing the moves that may or must be made at a particular stage or sub-stage of such a discussion. They explain how these dialectical profiles can be methodically exploited for systematically identifying the verbal expressions that can be indicative of any of these moves in argumentative practice

Norms of Presentational Force

This is the author's accepted manuscript, made available with permission of the American Forensic Association.Can style or presentational devices reasonably compel us to believe, agree, act? I submit that they can, and that the normative pragmatic project explains how. After describing a normative pragmatic approach to presentational force, I analyze and evaluate presentational force in Susan B. Anthony's "Is it a Crime for a U. S. Citizen to Vote" as it apparently proceeds from logic, emotion, and style. I conclude with reflections on the compatibility of the normative pragmatic approach with the recently-developed pragma-dialectical treatment of presentational devices