Journal of Argumentation in Context - Volume 5, Issue 2, 2016

This paper explores the viability of a synergy between corpus linguistics and the study of argumentation in context. While quantitative approaches to the study of discourse have been profitably integrated at the levels of lexico-grammar and syntax, more rarely has this been the case for higher levels of analysis such as argumentative structures. Such an approach would help identify those recurring patterns of argumentation that build up cumulatively, and which can only be identified in larger samples of discourse. In particular this paper concerns how the tools of corpus linguistics can be put to use for the analysis of strategic manoeuvring, and especially topical selection. In order to do so, the televised prime ministerial debates held on the occasion of the 2010 general election in the UK will be taken as a case study, with a focus on the use of linguistic indicators that might help retrieve argumentative patterns.

This study correlates argumentation, translation, and literature to construct a new model for assessing the quality of translated literature. Literary translation is described as being compatible with the rhetorical stream of argumentation studies, while the study rests on the overriding notion of ethics of difference in argumentative cross-cultural and translational encounters. The model incorporates ethics of difference and interpretive act, pragma-dialectical contributions of scheme/structure and rhetorical/dialectical situations, and aesthetic features including figures of speech and (sub)genres of literature. Application of the model to an English translation of a classical poem (a Rumi’s allegory) shows that the model can be systematically applied to quality assessment of translated literature (and literary genres e.g. plays, novels, audiovisual/cinematic products, etc.). Considering the implications and suggestions for further research, the study can progressively develop into a literary or cross-linguistic subgenre of argumentation theory, with implications for comparative literature, philosophy of meaning, translation theory, and dialectical hermeneutics.

This paper investigates the apologies of four US politicians whose marital infidelities were made public. The paper notes the variations in the use of religious language, representations of the transgressions, and metadiscourse. These variations can be calibrated to political ethos, the nature of the transgression, and the amount of repair work required. Thus, generic qualities of the personal political apology are best interpreted as existing on a sliding scale relative to the situation.

In axiological argumentation that refers to issues concerning matters of ethics, politics, or aesthetics, a warrant is derived from a general axiological base, which consists of propositions that are accepted by a particular social group. Such a warrant is supported by ideology, understood as a relatively well organised set of evaluative propositions (justified within frames of the given system). In axiological argumentation beliefs are represented by cultural objects that serve as the arguments. Cultural objects are universals, which have a culturally developed interpretation. Without proper recognition of the interpretant, the correct reading of the sign and its appraisal is impossible. The main purpose of this article is to show how ideological objects constitute the base of the discourse. In analysis of chosen texts I will demonstrate, how at every stage of argumentation arguers exploit the topic and interactive potential of argumentation.

It is an essential requirement of democracy that politicians provide account of their words and actions to the public. However, being able to account is especially important when a politician or the party he/she is representing is assumed responsible for a critical event that has undesirable consequences for the public. Under such a condition, political press conferences serve as an instrument for a politician to justify the position of the government by means of argumentation. By adopting the pragma-dialectical framework, this paper sets out to explain how a politician maneuvers strategically in a press conference for the purpose of diminishing political responsibility when his party which is in charge of the government is assumed responsible for a critical event. The paper draws its data from the political press conference held by Erdoğan, a former Prime Minister of Turkey, following the mine accident that took place in Soma, Turkey, in 2014.