Argumentative INDICATORS
Ancient rhetorical theory does not focus much on the connectives that structure argumentative passages. In contemporary times, neither Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca ([1958]) nor Lausberg (1960) pay specific attention to connectives in their respective monumental recreations of the classical system.
However, Toulmin’s “layout of argument” emphasizes the role of linguistic connectives in articulating the elements of the argumentative cell (1958). The warrant is introduced by since; the backing by on account of; the claim (conclusion) by so, and the rebuttal (counter-discourse) by unless. However, Toulmin does not discuss connectives further.
Connectives are a central issue in linguistic approaches to argumentation (Ducrot & al. 1980).
1. Indicators
Argument analysis relies on three levels of indicators:
(1) Boundary indicators, which help to delineate the argumentative sequence.
(2) Internal indicators, which help to identify and articulate the argument and the conclusion within the argument sequence.
(3) Argument scheme indicators, which help identify the argument scheme embodied in a given argument.
Various linguistic tools can be used for these operations and can functionally be considered « argument indicators, » not just discourse particles or full semantic words. This label most often refers to the intermediate level of the argument-conclusion structure, where connectives play a prominent role.
1.1 Multifunctionality of Connective Particles
The terminology of connectives and markers of discursive or argumentative structure is rich. Schematically, the framework for the discussion is as follows.
— In logic, logical connectives build complex propositions from simple or complex propositions.
— In natural language, linguistic connectives belong to the category of discursive particles. Grammatically, these particles include conjunctions, prepositions, adverbs, interjections, etc. Some discursive particles such as well, um, right etc., are particularly associated with conversational speech.
— Natural language connectives are multifunctional. Some connectives retain their non-argumentative functions, even in argumentative contexts. For instance, the enumerative and sequential connectives, « first, second, and finally » can be used to list agenda items or arguments. In an argumentative context, the “list effect” itself can be argumentative, see case–by-case argument; linked arguments.
Other connectives such as since, because, so, therefore, etc., are particularly useful for marking a segment of discourse as an argument or as a conclusion. However while their argumentative function is predominant, it is not exclusive.
In summary, connectives are multifunctional particles that can signal an argument-conclusion relationship.
1.2 Connective Verbs
The argument-conclusion structure, « A so B » can also be articulated by a complete verbal construction:
[A]; this leads me to conclude that [B]
1.3 Connectives Articulate the Semantic Content of Entire Discourses.
Logical connectives articulate precise sets of well-defined simple or complex logical propositions. In contrast, natural language connectives articulate propositions and discourses of undefined length. In the preceding example, [A] and [B] refer to passages of an unspecified length.
Linguistic connectives articulate meanings inferred from such indefinite spans of discourse. For example, a statement such as “and so [Fr. ainsi] Commissioner Valentin put the whole gang in jail” could conclude a novel. The left scope [1] of the connective so sums up all the events since the beginning of Commissioner Valentin’s investigation. The same is true for the connector but, which does not articulate propositions but rather two semantic-pragmatic contents, see the example below, §3.1). See orientation.
1.4 Multifunctionality of Argument Indicators
Argument indicators are not unifunctional words; not all their occurrences are argumentative. Discourse following so or thus is not necessarily a conclusion, and the discourse following because is not necessarily an argument pointing to a conclusion. Thus and because have non-argumentative uses, and excellent arguments do notnecessarily use therefore or because. This means, on the one hand, that peppering a speech with because and therefore does not necessarily make it a good argument. Aristotle had already recognized this strategy and rightly considered it vain, see expression. On the other hand, an interpreter who waits for a so or because to realize he is in an argumentative situation lacks argumentative, interpretive and interactional competence. Connective particles limit interpretive possibilities by evoking a potential argumentative structure. However, they are not a summons to rouse a sleepy recipient from interpretive torpor.
The discussion of a particle’s argumentative value relates to the argumentative sequence itself. A passage is clearly argumentative if it can be linked it to an argumentative question that sets out both a discourse and a counter-discourse. The argumentative function of a particle is contextual, it is activated when it appears in argumentative contexts.
This general condition does not preclude the practice of the ars subtilior’s practice of reconstructing implicit arguments and conclusions.
When analyzing the linking phenomenon in natural language, it is important to consider the complexity of the grammar of linking terms or expressions.
— Their grammatical category and their specific semantic and syntactic properties.
— Their multifunctionality as argumentative particles.
2. Thus, therefore, so…, since, because…
So can be a conclusion marker, among many other things. For instance, it can signal the resumption of the main topic of a text or conversation after it has been temporarily put aside. Complicating things further, this non-argumentative resumptive function can be found everywhere, and especially in argumentative contexts. The following example is taken from a lively debate on the attribution of French nationality to immigrants living in France[2]:
je pense que:: toutes ces personnes- et puis aux personnes aussi qui sont venues donc pendant les trente glorieuses on leur doit quand même une certaine forme de respect.
I think that:: all these people— and then also the people who came therefore [Fr. donc] during the post-war boom years, we still owe them a certain amount of respect.
No participant ever doubted that “these people” came “during the glorious thirties”. The reasoning here is
(Argument) they came as workers [donc = therefore] during the post-war boom years”,
(Conclusion) they are entitled to respect.
In fact, donc (=therefore), resumes a statement that is, functionally, not a conclusion but an argument. The structure is certainly not:
* we owe respect to all these people, therefore [Fr. donc] they came during the post-war boom years.
The following intervention is made by a property manager, M, during a conciliation meeting with his tenant, T. The manager recaps his position: he demands a monthly rent increase of 12€ (a very modest amount) [3].
Moi j’avais d=mandé madame T doit s’en rappeler\ j’avais d=mandé si v=voulez’ ◊ euh: donc euh: quatre vingt francs si v=voulez’ pour arriver à mille trente, par mois, c=qui m=paraissait très raisonnable, très raisonnable’ ◊ vu l’appartement/ et vu son emplacement/ ◊ vous savez qu’un F3 disons tout d=même au deuxième étage’ ◊ relativement confor- table\ […]
[I asked/ Mrs. T certainly remembers\ I asked if you want uh, so [donc] uh: eighty francs f you want to get to a thousand thirty a month=]claim [that seemed very reasonable, very reasonable]modal [considering the apartment/ and considering its location/ (..) you know a three-room apartment let’s say all the same on the second floor’ (..) relatively comfortable\ […] ]argument
Corpus Rent Negotiation (conciliation commission), Clapi Database of spoken French. Our brackets, italics and markings.
T.’s claim is articulated to the context by so [Fr. donc, meaning “so, therefore”], which sounds quite standard. However, in this claim so does not introduce a conclusion drawn from what comes before, which has already been expressed and repeated.
The so has its classical recall, resumptive function; it just happens that the repeated segment is a claim. Thus, this is an example of a non-argumentative donc = [so, therefore] accompanying a claim, in an strongly argumentative context. Nonetheless, donc is not here a conclusion marker, but a resumption marker. It just so happens that the repeated segment is a claim.
Other non argumentative functions of so, then, because
can be used to extract and thematize the implicit content of a sentence:
— An encyclopaedic content: All this happened in Greenland, so far up north.
— A semantic content:
S1 — Peter stopped smoking.
S2 — Then you know that he used to smoke?
— An implication of the act of saying something:
S1 — That dress suits you very well!
S2 — Because the others don’t?
3. But
But reverses the argumentative orientation of the propositions it introduces. Nevertheless, no more than so, but is not an inherently argumentative particle, and the argumentative framework and vocabulary cannot account for all its occurrences. In particular but reverses not only argumentative orientations but also narrative and descriptive ones.
3.1 But [Fr. mais], reverses narrative and descriptive orientations.
In general, but is used to reverse any type of orientation: narrative, argumentative, or descriptive. In the following text, but is used to introduce a new narrative development:
August 27: On Friday, I remembered that the annual tax on my car was due to expire. Since I am not one of those people who leave things until the last minute , I went to the tax office to renew it. There was an agent there for me, or almost. In just a few minutes, everything was done for me over the Internet. I’m all set until next year. But in the meantime…
He walked, and as he walked, tirelessly, with his head held high, swaying to his regular rhythm, dreaming of next year […] ([4])
Such non-argumentative uses of but are quite common. The following passage contains perhaps the most famous occurrence of but in all of French literature. Emma is the heroine of Gustave Flaubert’s novel, Madame Bovary. The entire passage is narrative-descriptive.First, it develops a semantic isotopy: “travel, love, beauty, exotic life, hammocks and gondolas.” But articulates this first isotopy into a second, “husband snoring, children coughing, irritating screeching noises and provincial life”. It would not make sense to impose an argumentative analysis on such a text.
Emma was not asleep; she pretended to be; and while he dozed off by her side she awakened to other dreams.
To the gallop of four horses she was carried away for a week towards a new land, whence they would return no more. They went on and on, their arms entwined, without a word. Often from the top of a mountain they suddenly glimpsed some splendid city with domes, and bridges, and ships, forests of citron trees, and cathedrals of white marble, on whose pointed steeples were storks’ nests. They went at a walking-pace because of the great flag-stones, and on the ground there were bouquets of flowers, offered you by women dressed in red bodices. They heard the chiming of bells, the neighing of mules, together with the murmur of guitars and the noise of fountains, whose rising spray refreshed heaps of fruit arranged like a pyramid at the foot of pale statues that smiled beneath playing waters. And then, one night they came to a fishing village, where brown nets were drying in the wind along the cliffs and in front of the huts. It was there that they would stay; they would live in a low, flat-roofed house, shaded by a palm-tree, in the heart of a gulf, by the sea. They would row in gondolas, swing in hammocks, and their existence would be easy and large as their silk gowns, warm and star-spangled as the nights they would contemplate. However, in the immensity of this future that she conjured up, nothing special stood forth; the days, all magnificent, resembled each other like waves; and it swayed in the horizon, infinite, harmonized, azure, and bathed in sunshine. But the child began to cough in her cot or Bovary snored more loudly, and Emma did not fall asleep till morning, when the dawn whitened the windows, and when little Justin was already in the square taking down the shutters of the chemist’s shop.
Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, [1856][5]
In these two examples, but is not argumentative, it marks an isotopic shift.
3.2 Other Functions of but
But as an Indicator of an Unresolved Contradiction – In the standard argumentative use of but, the inferred contradiction « E1 but E2″ is resolved in favor of E2, the coordinated construction being co-oriented with E2. In other cases but articulates two opposing arguments without argumentative resolution.
S1 — What should they do today?
S2 — Some want to go to the forest, but others want to go the beach.
Assuming that S2 continues his discourse with a tentative conclusion, conclusion (a) sounds strange, and (b) sounds rather standard:
*(a) So we’re going to the beach.
(b) We don’t know what to do, we’ll have to talk about that.
But as an Indicator of Argumentative Dissociation – The concept of argumentative dissociation was introduced by Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca. Dissociation is defined as the splitting of an elementary concept into two antagonistic meanings, one positive and the other negative, in order to avoid a contradiction ([1958], 550-609), see dissociation.
S1 — I thought you wanted reform?
S2 — We do want reform, but real reform.
Other functions
— Correction: in reference to the “beautiful blue Danube”,
In Vienna, the Danube is not blue, but dirty gray
— Preface to a second turn of speech, aligned with the first.
S1 — Once again, Peter has failed to graduate
S2 — But that’s just like me!
4. Other Constructions Bring an Argument to a Conclusion
An argumentative thus can be paraphrased using a set of verbal constructions that link the argument to the conclusion:
| [left context] |
therefore, from there, hence, that is why,
this means, proves, clearly shows that…
one can (then) conclude that…
|
[conclusion] |
4.1 Connective predicates
Markers of argumentative structure would thus be unduly restricted to “small connective words.” Other constructions, combining anaphoric terms, verbs, or nouns can exlicitly play this role.
Some verbs predicate a conclusion on an argument or an argument on a conclusion. These connective predicates are, in fact, the only undeniable and unambiguous argumentative indicators. We must distinguish between two cases.
In what follows, argument is taken in the sense that it has in the theory of argumentation, not in the sense of “argument of a mathematical function”, see argument)
(1) Conclusion predicate: the conclusion is predicated on the argument.
Subject (argument) + Predicate (conclusion)
— from [argument] I infer (that) [conclusion].
V = to conclude, to infer, to deduce…
— [argument] makes it possible to deduce (that) [conclusion].
V = to induce, to show, to demonstrate…
— [argument] proves [conclusion]
V = to prove, to show, to demonstrate, to support, to corroborate, to suggest, to go in the direction of, to motivate, to legitimate, to justify, to entitle, to believe (say, think…)
(2) Argument predicate: The argument is predicated on the conclusion.
Subject (Conclusion) + Predicate (Argument)
[conclusion] ensues from [argument]:
V = to ensue, to result, to follow, to derive…
To argue is not a conclusion predicate, but rather a simple verb denoting speech activity. In “X argues for such-and-such a conclusion”, the subject X must be [+ human]; it cannot be an argument, or a description of a state of affairs. This construction contrasts with the construction “X suggests such-and-such a conclusion” where X can be a discourse or a human being, see (to) argue.
Failing to recognise these distinctions can be particularly damaging in the teaching of argumentation.
4.2 Constructions that Frame Argumentation
All words used to talk about arguments and argumentation can serve as markers of argumentative structure and argumentative function. This class of nominal indicators includes the entire lexicon of argumentation, i.e. the metalanguage of argumentation:(counter)argument, (counter-)conclusion, point of view…, premise, objection, refutation…
This is my conclusion, a consequence, a serious objection, an argument to be considered.
[D1, argument] is given as a good reason to admit, to do [D2, conclusion]
[D1, argument] is stated, stated for the purpose of making [D2, conclusion] acceptable or convincing.
the conclusion, the premise, the objection that…;
against this point of view…
We can be sure that “to build the school here, the land is cheaper” is an argument, because it can be satisfactorily paraphrased as follows:
A good reason to build the school here is that the land is cheaper.
The fact that the land is cheaper justifies the decision to build the school there.
[1] The left scope of a connective is the left segment of discourse taken into account for the semantic interpretation of the passage; the same applies for the right scope.
[2] Corpus Debate on Immigration, Clapi Database of Spoken French
http://clapi.univ-lyon2.fr/V3_Feuilleter.php? Num_corpus = 35]. (09-30-2013)
[3] Corpus Negotiation on rents – conciliation commission), Clapi Database of spoken French. Our brackets, italics and markings. http://clapi.univ-lyon2.fr/V3_Feuilleter.php?num_corpus=13]. (09-30-2013)
[4] http://impassesud.joueb.com/news/mali-pendant-ce-temps-la-il-il-marchait]. 07-28-2010. Our emphasis.
[5] Quoted from Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary. Trans. by Eleanor Marx-Aveling. Ebook, 2006. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2413/2413-0.txt